Описание
Argo Affected by SSO RBAC Delegation Nil Pointer Dereference DoS (gatekeeper.go)
Summary
A nil pointer dereference in server/auth/gatekeeper.go rbacAuthorization() causes a panic (denial of service) for SSO users whose claims match a namespace-level RBAC rule but not an SSO-namespace rule, when SSO_DELEGATE_RBAC_TO_NAMESPACE=true.
Details
When getServiceAccount(claims, ssoNamespace) returns nil (no matching rule), the error is suppressed and loginAccount remains nil. If RBAC delegation finds a matching namespaceAccount, line 304 calls precedence(loginAccount) which unconditionally accesses serviceAccount.Annotations — nil pointer dereference.
Affected code (v4.0.4):
PoC
Live-tested 2026-04-17: kind cluster, Argo Workflows v4.0.4, Dex v2.43.1 OIDC provider.
- Deploy Argo Workflows with
--auth-mode=sso --auth-mode=client, SSO pointing to Dex, RBAC enabled. - Set
SSO_DELEGATE_RBAC_TO_NAMESPACE=trueon the argo-server deployment. - Create an RBAC ServiceAccount with
workflows.argoproj.io/rbac-rule: "true"annotation in a target namespace (e.g.,target-ns). - Do not create a matching RBAC rule in the SSO namespace (
argo). - Authenticate via the Dex SSO flow.
- Request
GET /api/v1/workflows/target-nswith the SSO session cookie. - Server returns HTTP 500:
{"code":13,"message":"runtime error: invalid memory address or nil pointer dereference"} - Server logs:
Recovered from panicwith stack trace atgatekeeper.go:233(precedence()) called fromgatekeeper.go:304.
Every subsequent API request from affected SSO users triggers the same panic.
Impact
Permanent denial of service for any SSO user whose claims don't match SSO-namespace RBAC but do match a target namespace rule. Realistic in multi-tenant deployments with per-namespace RBAC. The gRPC recovery interceptor catches the panic so the server process survives, but the affected user gets HTTP 500 on every request.
Suggested Fix
Add nil check: if loginAccount == nil || precedence(namespaceAccount) > precedence(loginAccount)
AI Disclosure
This advisory was prepared with AI assistance (Claude Code, Anthropic).
Пакеты
github.com/argoproj/argo-workflows/v4
>= 4.0.0, <= 4.0.4
4.0.5
Связанные уязвимости
Argo Workflows is an open source container-native workflow engine for orchestrating parallel jobs on Kubernetes. From version 4.0.0 to before version 4.0.5, a nil pointer dereference in server/auth/gatekeeper.go rbacAuthorization() causes a panic (denial of service) for SSO users whose claims match a namespace-level RBAC rule but not an SSO-namespace rule, when SSO_DELEGATE_RBAC_TO_NAMESPACE=true. This issue has been patched in version 4.0.5.
Argo Workflows is an open source container-native workflow engine for orchestrating parallel jobs on Kubernetes. From version 4.0.0 to before version 4.0.5, a nil pointer dereference in server/auth/gatekeeper.go rbacAuthorization() causes a panic (denial of service) for SSO users whose claims match a namespace-level RBAC rule but not an SSO-namespace rule, when SSO_DELEGATE_RBAC_TO_NAMESPACE=true. This issue has been patched in version 4.0.5.