OpenStack Nova: Nova scheduler hint injection bypasses Placement resource claims and scheduling constraintsGHSA-mfg3-p6m3-gjgr
MEDIUMGHSA-mfg3-p6m3-gjgr is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.4) CWE-669 vulnerability in nova. A fix is available for nova — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-mfg3-p6m3-gjgr.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
nova🐍nova🐍novaReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Affects
- Nova: >=18.0.0 <31.3.1, >=32.0.0 <32.2.1, >=33.0.0 <33.0.2
Description
Erichen from the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences reported that Nova's server create API does not strip internal scheduler hints. An authenticated user can bypass Placement resource claims and scheduling constraint enforcement, including availability zone, host aggregate, and image trait restrictions. The resulting instance has no Placement allocation, which can lead to compute node resource exhaustion and cross-tenant data persistence on NVMe devices after instance deletion. Deployments running Nova 18.0.0 or later are affected.
Patches
- https://review.opendev.org/993604 (2025.1/epoxy)
- https://review.opendev.org/993603 (2025.2/flamingo)
- https://review.opendev.org/993602 (2026.1/gazpacho)
- https://review.opendev.org/993601 (2026.2/hibiscus)
Credits
- Erichen from Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CVE-2026-46448)
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | nova | ≥ 18.0.0 | No fix |
| 🐍PyPI | nova | ≥ 32.0.0&&< 32.2.1 | 32.2.1pip install --upgrade 'nova==32.2.1' |
| 🐍PyPI | nova | ≥ 33.0.0&&< 33.0.2 | 33.0.2pip install --upgrade 'nova==33.0.2' |
Affected Products
novaopenstackDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for nova, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
A fix is available for GHSA-mfg3-p6m3-gjgr; check the affected-versions list above or the advisory for the patched release of nova, then make sure no transitive dependency still pins the vulnerable range.
Workarounds
Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) 16.2, 17.1, and 18.0 ship affected versions of openstack-nova and are vulnerable to this flaw. The vulnerability requires authenticated access as a project member (the default 'member' role is sufficient to create servers). The Nova API is typically network-accessible within the…
There is no configuration option to restrict which scheduler hint keys users can supply. However, operators can reduce the attack surface by: 1. Restricting access to the Nova API via network segmentation (firewall rules limiting which networks can reach the Nova API endpoint). 2. Using Keystone application credentials with limited scope to restrict which users can create servers. These mitigations reduce exposure but do not fully prevent exploitation.Source: Red Hat security advisory for GHSA-mfg3-p6m3-gjgr (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat OpenStack Platform 13.0 - ELS | openstack-nova-1:17.0.13-43.el7ost | RHSA-2026:94039 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-mfg3-p6m3-gjgr in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.