Security advisory
Sydent is a reference Matrix identity server. Sydent does not limit the size of requests it receives from HTTP clients. A malicious user could send an HTTP request with a very large body, leading to memory exhaustion and denial of service. Sydent also does not limit response size for requests it makes to remote Matrix homeservers. A malicious homeserver could return a very large response, again leading to memory exhaustion and denial of service. This affects any server which accepts registration requests from untrusted clients. This issue has been patched by releases 89071a1, 0523511, f56eee3. As a workaround request sizes can be limited in an HTTP reverse-proxy. There are no known workarounds for the problem with overlarge responses.
- Products
- Not specified
- Affected versions
- Not specified
- Fixed versions
- Not specified
- CVEs
- CVE-2021-29430
- Confirmed fixed CVEs
- Not specified
- Updated in this feed
- 31 Oct 2026, 11:44 UTC · Revision 1
Source evidence
Sydent is a reference Matrix identity server. Sydent does not limit the size of requests it receives from HTTP clients. A malicious user could send an HTTP request with a very large body, leading to memory exhaustion and denial of service. Sydent also does not limit response size for requests it makes to remote Matrix homeservers. A malicious homeserver could return a very large response, again leading to memory exhaustion and denial of service. This affects any server which accepts registration requests from untrusted clients. This issue has been patched by releases 89071a1, 0523511, f56eee3. As a workaround request sizes can be limited in an HTTP reverse-proxy. There are no known workarounds for the problem with overlarge responses.
osv:CVE-2021-29430
Complete source record
{
"id": "b01b9d42a60842b826a99c3b6c8befa0172d76e05310a1248ed1623766b62b71",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2021-29430",
"method": "structured",
"payload": {
"kind": "advisory",
"title": "CVE-2021-29430",
"summary": "Sydent is a reference Matrix identity server. Sydent does not limit the size of requests it receives from HTTP clients. A malicious user could send an HTTP request with a very large body, leading to memory exhaustion and denial of service. Sydent also does not limit response size for requests it makes to remote Matrix homeservers. A malicious homeserver could return a very large response, again leading to memory exhaustion and denial of service. This affects any server which accepts registration requests from untrusted clients. This issue has been patched by releases 89071a1, 0523511, f56eee3. As a workaround request sizes can be limited in an HTTP reverse-proxy. There are no known workarounds for the problem with overlarge responses.",
"evidence": "osv:CVE-2021-29430",
"products": [],
"severity": "high",
"structured": {
"id": "CVE-2021-29430",
"aliases": [
"CVE-2021-29430",
"GHSA-wmg4-8cp2-hpg9",
"PYSEC-2021-21"
],
"metrics": [
{
"type": "CVSS_V3",
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H"
}
],
"affected": [
{
"ranges": [
{
"repo": "https://github.com/matrix-org/sydent",
"type": "GIT",
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "c2ab10897500dbba1c0d4be33f42985d81bbad7d"
},
{
"fixed": "0523511d2fb40f2738f8a8549868f44b96e5dab7"
},
{
"fixed": "89071a1a754c69a50deac89e6bb74002d4cda19d"
},
{
"fixed": "f56eee315b6c44fdd9f6aa785cc2ec744a594428"
}
],
"database_specific": {
"extracted_events": [
{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:matrix:sydent:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
"range": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "2.3.0"
}
],
"source": "CPE_RANGE"
},
{
"range": [
{
"fixed": "0523511d2fb40f2738f8a8549868f44b96e5dab7"
}
],
"source": "REFERENCES_COMMIT"
},
{
"range": [
{
"fixed": "89071a1a754c69a50deac89e6bb74002d4cda19d"
}
],
"source": "REFERENCES_COMMIT"
},
{
"range": [
{
"fixed": "f56eee315b6c44fdd9f6aa785cc2ec744a594428"
}
],
"source": "REFERENCES_COMMIT"
},
{
"range": [
{
"fixed": "c2ab10897500dbba1c0d4be33f42985d81bbad7d"
}
],
"source": "REFERENCES_TAG",
"original_tag": "v2.3.0"
}
]
}
}
],
"versions": [
"fosdem_2021-01-15",
"v2.2.0",
"v2.1.0",
"v2.0.1",
"v2.0.0",
"v1.0.3",
"v1.0.1",
"v1.0.2",
"v1.0.0"
],
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2021-29430.json"
}
}
],
"modified": "2026-10-20T10:54:37.135231150Z",
"provider": "osv",
"references": [
"https://github.com/matrix-org/sydent/releases/tag/v2.3.0",
"https://github.com/matrix-org/sydent/commit/0523511d2fb40f2738f8a8549868f44b96e5dab7",
"https://github.com/matrix-org/sydent/commit/89071a1a754c69a50deac89e6bb74002d4cda19d",
"https://github.com/matrix-org/sydent/commit/f56eee315b6c44fdd9f6aa785cc2ec744a594428",
"https://github.com/matrix-org/sydent/security/advisories/GHSA-wmg4-8cp2-hpg9",
"https://pypi.org/project/matrix-sydent/"
],
"provider_metadata": {}
},
"related_cves": [
{
"value": "CVE-2021-29430",
"evidence": "/id"
}
],
"security_relevant": true,
"severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
},
"source_id": "core-osv",
"document_id": 385752,
"published_at": "2021-04-15T21:15:17.413+00:00"
}