Lemmy is a link aggregator and forum for the fediverse. Prior to 0.19.19 and 1.0.0-beta.1, actix-web ConnectionInfo::realip_remote_addr reads the first value of X-Forwarded-For as the client address used by raw_ip_key in crates/utils/src/rate_limit/mod.rs. Lemmy's bundled docker/nginx.conf uses $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for instead of $remote_addr, which appends the real client address to an X-Forwarded-For value supplied by the client. An unauthenticated attacker can therefore place a different spoofed address first on each request and receive a new rate-limit bucket, bypassing limits on POST /api/v4/account/auth/register, POST /api/v4/account/auth/login, POST /api/v4/post, POST /api/v4/comment, GET /api/v4/search, POST /api/v4/image, and POST /api/v4/account/import_settings. This permits excessive account creation, brute-force attempts, spam, scraping, uploads, and repeated imports. This issue is fixed in versions 0.19.19 and 1.0.0-beta.1.
Advisories

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Fixes

Solution

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Workaround

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History

Wed, 19 Aug 2026 22:00:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Lemmynet
Lemmynet lemmy
Vendors & Products Lemmynet
Lemmynet lemmy

Wed, 19 Aug 2026 20:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Lemmy is a link aggregator and forum for the fediverse. Prior to 0.19.19 and 1.0.0-beta.1, actix-web ConnectionInfo::realip_remote_addr reads the first value of X-Forwarded-For as the client address used by raw_ip_key in crates/utils/src/rate_limit/mod.rs. Lemmy's bundled docker/nginx.conf uses $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for instead of $remote_addr, which appends the real client address to an X-Forwarded-For value supplied by the client. An unauthenticated attacker can therefore place a different spoofed address first on each request and receive a new rate-limit bucket, bypassing limits on POST /api/v4/account/auth/register, POST /api/v4/account/auth/login, POST /api/v4/post, POST /api/v4/comment, GET /api/v4/search, POST /api/v4/image, and POST /api/v4/account/import_settings. This permits excessive account creation, brute-force attempts, spam, scraping, uploads, and repeated imports. This issue is fixed in versions 0.19.19 and 1.0.0-beta.1.
Title Lemmy: Rate limit bypass via X-Forwarded-For header spoofing in actix-web ConnectionInfo
Weaknesses CWE-799
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 6.5, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L'}


Projects

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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: GitHub_M

Published:

Updated: 2026-08-19T20:27:45.162Z

Reserved: 2026-06-15T23:07:33.233Z

Link: CVE-2026-54738

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-08-19T21:16:58.073

Modified: 2026-08-19T21:16:58.073

Link: CVE-2026-54738

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

Updated: 2026-08-19T22:15:04Z

Weaknesses