Stop percent-decoding HTTP request header values

parse_header() applied decode_path_component() to every header value
except Location and Referer, after is_field_value() validation. Wire
sequences like %0D%0A passed the check and expanded into literal CR/LF
inside stored values, enabling response splitting, log injection, and
proxy smuggling. %3D/%2C/%3B also flipped Cookie and X-Forwarded-For
boundaries against WAFs inspecting the wire form.

RFC 9110 §5.5 specifies header values as opaque octets. Drop the
decoding and the Location/Referer special case (originally workarounds
for the same auto-decode misbehavior; redundant once decoding stops).
Applications that need URI semantics should call decode_uri_component()
or decode_path_component() on the result explicitly.

Add regression tests covering CRLF injection, %3D/%2C/%3B boundary
characters, UTF-8 and %uXXXX sequences, browser-style Referer URLs
containing %0A (issue #2033), and the explicit-decode migration
pattern.
This commit is contained in:
yhirose committed 2026-05-10 12:59:29 +09:00
1 parent 7d5082cc0e
commit fbb031ed85
2 files changed
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@@ -5016,12 +5016,11 @@ inline bool parse_header(const char *beg, const char *end, T fn) {
if (!detail::fields::is_field_value(val)) { return false; }
if (case_ignore::equal(key, "Location") ||
case_ignore::equal(key, "Referer")) {
fn(key, val);
} else {
fn(key, decode_path_component(val));
}
// RFC 9110 §5.5: header field values are opaque octets and MUST NOT be
// percent-decoded by the recipient. Applications that need to interpret a
// value as a URI component should call httplib::decode_uri_component()
// (or decode_path_component()) explicitly.
fn(key, val);
return true;
}