Description

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):

// gatekeeper.go:304
} else if precedence(namespaceAccount) > precedence(loginAccount) {
    // loginAccount is nil here -> precedence(nil) -> PANIC

// gatekeeper.go:232-234
func precedence(serviceAccount *corev1.ServiceAccount) int {
    i, _ := strconv.Atoi(serviceAccount.Annotations[common.AnnotationKeyRBACRulePrecedence])
    return i...
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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=true on 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-ns with the SSO session cookie.

Server returns HTTP 500: {"code":13,"message":"runtime error: invalid memory address or nil pointer dereference"}

Server logs: Recovered from panic with stack trace at gatekeeper.go:233 (precedence()) called from gatekeeper.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).

Mitigation

Aliases

References