CVE-2023-38471 Reachable assertion in dbus_set_host_name

What is CVE-2023-38471?

CVE-2023-38471 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Redhat Enterprise Linux, published on 2 Nov 2023. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

A vulnerability was found in Avahi. A reachable assertion exists in the dbus_set_host_name function.

Weakness: CWE-617

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-38471?

It affects 2 products.

Products include Avahi Avahi, Redhat Enterprise Linux.

How do I fix CVE-2023-38471?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2023-38471 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-38471 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Redhat Enterprise Linux

• CVE-2017-6519 Denial of service in n/a Critical 9.1
• CVE-2021-26720 Path traversal in n/a High 7.8
• CVE-2026-24401 Avahi has Uncontrolled Recursion in lookup_handle_cname function Medium 6.5
• CVE-2025-68468 Avahi has a reachable assertion in lookup_multicast_callback Medium 6.5
• CVE-2025-68471 Avahi has a reachable assertion in lookup_start Medium 6.5

All Redhat Enterprise Linux vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as ALPINE-CVE-2023-38471, AZL-31850, AZL-34551, BELL-CVE-2023-38471, CLEANSTART-2026-YF74212, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-38471 and 4 more.