Fix Unrestricted Resource Consumption in AdonisJS
Unrestricted resource consumption in AdonisJS is a fast track to a Denial of Service (DoS). By default, loose body parser configurations and missing rate limits allow attackers to flood your heap or saturate disk I/O. As a researcher, my goal is to ensure the application fails gracefully under pressure rather than crashing the entire node process due to memory exhaustion or disk filling.
The Vulnerable Pattern
// config/bodyparser.ts - Dangerous oversized limits export const bodyParserConfig = { json: { limit: '100mb', // Attacker can flood RAM with massive JSON strings }, multipart: { autoProcess: true, maxSize: '5gb', // Easy disk exhaustion attack vector } }
// Controller - Processing data without any throttling public async store({ request }: HttpContext) { const data = request.all(); await Database.table(‘logs’).insert(data); return { status: ‘ok’ }; }
The Secure Implementation
The mitigation strategy focuses on 'Defense in Depth'. First, we harden the global body parser settings in config/bodyparser.ts to reject massive payloads before they hit the application logic, preventing memory exhaustion. Second, we implement the @adonisjs/limiter package to throttle the number of requests a single client can make, preventing CPU and database connection saturation. Finally, we move from generic request handling to strict schema-based validation to ensure that only expected, small-footprint data is processed by the event loop.
// 1. config/bodyparser.ts - Strict payload capping export const bodyParserConfig = { json: { limit: '1mb' }, multipart: { autoProcess: true, maxSize: '2mb', extnames: ['jpg', 'png'] } }// 2. start/limiter.ts - Implementing Rate Limiting import Limiter from ‘@ioc:Adonis/Addons/Limiter’ export const { http } = Limiter.define(‘global’, ({ auth }) => { return Limiter.allowRequests(100).every(‘1 min’).usingKey(auth.user?.id || ‘guest’) })
// 3. start/kernel.ts - Registering the middleware Server.middleware.register([ () => import(‘@ioc:Adonis/Addons/LimiterMiddleware’) ])
Your AdonisJS API
might be exposed to Unrestricted Resource Consumption
74% of AdonisJS apps fail this check. Hackers use automated scanners to find this specific flaw. Check your codebase before they do.
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