All the buildbots are currently failing at test_nntplib.
See the errors in attached test_nntplib.log.
The same error messages can be reproduced with a 3.5.2 interpreter:

$ python
Python 3.5.2 (default, Nov  7 2016, 11:31:36)
[GCC 6.2.1 20160830] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from nntplib import NNTP_SSL
>>> s = NNTP_SSL('nntp.aioe.org')
>>> resp, count, first, last, name = s.group('comp.lang.python')
>>> resp, overviews = s.over((last - 1, last))                      # does not fail
>>> resp, overviews = s.over((last - 9, last))
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/nntplib.py", line 831, in over
    resp, lines = self._longcmdstring(cmd, file)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/nntplib.py", line 525, in _longcmdstring
    resp, list = self._getlongresp(file)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/nntplib.py", line 494, in _getlongresp
    line = self._getline()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/nntplib.py", line 434, in _getline
    raise NNTPDataError('line too long')
nntplib.NNTPDataError: line too long
>>> resp, overviews = s.over((last - 1, last))                      # fails now
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/nntplib.py", line 831, in over
    resp, lines = self._longcmdstring(cmd, file)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/nntplib.py", line 525, in _longcmdstring
    resp, list = self._getlongresp(file)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/nntplib.py", line 476, in _getlongresp
    resp = self._getresp()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/nntplib.py", line 458, in _getresp
    raise NNTPProtocolError(resp)
nntplib.NNTPProtocolError: a657tKkPSmKkOzCP9RkpDChwanytHhX4XFYLLMWqmA@mail.gmail.com> <CANc-5UxXPRF3qYKEmnyDdANoN-5GLiRXDrOU6E=R-8N8ZV2UdQ@mail.gmail.com> <CANc-5UwNFgS4aFN5qbwOPNdTMfXrEpJrv4b00_ycGmwAAoK81Q@mail.gmail.com> <CANc-5UyhtmjE9rXwhMBx=H9tBmYARhfzVjw2O=iKDmyEdCpqSA@mail.gmail.com> <CANc-5UyHLP3W8-_D18f8qE-9z0Y-DMbuHRMLpLY10eA52YZMew@mail.gmail.com> <CANc-5UxQA=-9Q=1GPh+5epX9E3KbAgd6Ye_63=kB55aB-MHqow@mail.gmail.com> <CANc-5UwqKjfxrxS0tvSk6r0kRQbr5kiAyCxJhUT8JPfcySSG2A@mail.gmail.com>
<CANc-5Uyj9VnJbVGSepVLLHeCgoB9uAOD61Ft4b=bdLTQJ5dE=A@mail.gmail.com>    10039   25      Xref: aioe.org comp.lang.python:183369

This appears to have been a transient failure; all builders are passing a forced build. I'm no expert on nntplib, but I'm not sure there's much we can do here beyond replacing the outside connection with a mock server. That pretty much defeats the purpose of the tests, though.

The problem is when getting an overview of the following comp.lang.python mail:
OT - "Soft" ESC key on the new MacBook Pro Michael Torrie
Tue Dec 13 21:33:07 EST 2016

This is at index (last - 16) now and that is why the buildbots do not fail anymore.
The response received from the server for this mail in the _getline() function is 2058 bytes long and _getline() raises NNTPDataError because this is greater than _MAXLINE (2048). Setting _MAXLINE to 4096 fixes the problem.

There remains to explain the failures in the other tests.

BTW while searching for this problem, I found that there were three other mails raising this same NNTPDataError('line too long') in the 40 last mails.

When the server sends a line longer than _MAXLINE, nntplib reads only _MAXLINE + 1 bytes leaving the remaining bytes left to be processed by the next command that will interpret those bytes as a protocol error. Hence the failing tests that follow the first NNTPDataError exception in the failing test_nntplib.

The patch increases _MAXLINE from 2048 to 4096 and fixes the above problem. It also takes care to read up to (and including) the terminator so that the following lines or the terminator is not interpreted as a protocol error by the next nntp command.

The patch does not include a test case.

I found that there were three other mails raising this same NNTPDataError('line too long') in the 40 last mails.

Cannot reproduce it. These three exceptions must have been NNTPProtocolError instead, caused by the initial NNTPDataError.

Just a quick note for the moment: It may not be wise to drop the limit to readline(). That is undoing bpo-16040. Maybe we need a better test if this change doesn't fail the test suite.

The patch:

1. Increases _MAXLINE to 4096.
2. Reverts bpo-16040 and that is not correct, please ignore that part.

The changes made in bpo-16040 limit the amount of data read by readline() and does not close the nntp session when the server sends a message whose size is greater than this limit. In that case, should not nntplib close the session as the session has become unusable as shown by the test_nntplib results in test_nntplib.log?

It seems to me there are two issues:

1. The limit of line length is not large enough.
2. After raising an error on too long line the NNTP object is left in broken state.

The first issue can be solved by increasing the default limit or by patching the nntp module in tests.

For the second issue I suggest to open new tracker issue.

It seems that the comment placed above the definition of _MAXLINE in the nntplib module is not correct:
"RFC 3977 limits NNTP line length to 512 characters, including CRLF. We have selected 2048 just to be on the safe side."
The 512 characters limit in RFC 3977 only applies to command lines and to the initial line of a response.

RC 3977 says instead:
"This document does not place any limit on the length of a line in a multi-line block. However, the standards that define the format of articles may do so."

So I think _MAXLINE should have a large value (64 K ?) and its semantic is that a line whose length is above that value is considered by nntplib as a Dos attack (and not a protocol violation). In that case nntplib should behave in consequence and prevent any further reads from that connection (either by closing the connection or raising an exception on each of these attempts). IMHO this should be handled in the same issue because it is one single problem, and this may possibly be handled in two different changesets.

The limit to readline() was added to prevent consuming an excessive amount of memory. But this doesn't help in case of long multiline responses, since all lines are accumulated in a list in memory. A malicious server could cause a client consuming an excessive amount of memory by sending large number of short lines instead of one long line.

Christian, what are you think about this?

This is causing all buildbots to fail again; I'd be in favor of temporarily skipping the affected tests with a message that points back to here until we have a permanent solution.

Xavier's plan sounds good. We could increase the line length limitation to 64K and add another limitation of the maximum lines a multi-line block could contain. Any limitation is violated the connection is refused. This situation seems quite similar to http.client.parse_headers, which doesn't get a standard length limitation or number limitation either.

A larger limit is totally fine. The check protects against DoS with hundreds of MB.

I'm currently travelling and won't be available much until next week.

Am 16. Dezember 2016 19:37:03 MEZ, schrieb Xiang Zhang <report@bugs.python.org>:

Xiang Zhang added the comment:

Xavier's plan sounds good. We could increase the line length limitation
to 64K and add another limitation of the maximum lines a multi-line
block could contain. Any limitation is violated the connection is
refused. This situation seems quite similar to
http.client.parse_headers, which doesn't get a standard length
limitation or number limitation either.

----------
nosy: +xiang.zhang

---

Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue28971\>

---

I'd be in favor of temporarily skipping the affected tests with a message that points back to here until we have a permanent solution.

I am working on it.

New changeset 1386795d266e by Xavier de Gaye in branch '3.5':
Issue bpo-28971: Temporarily skip test_over until a permanent solution is found
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/1386795d266e

New changeset a33047e08711 by Xavier de Gaye in branch '3.6':
Issue bpo-28971: Merge 3.5
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/a33047e08711

New changeset b51914417b41 by Xavier de Gaye in branch 'default':
Issue bpo-28971: Merge 3.6
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/b51914417b41

This patch defines a _MAXBYTES limit of 100 Mb. The limit is checked upon reading one line and also upon reading the multi-lines of the response to a user command.

If sender sends a lot of empty lines and file is not None, LF or CRLF is stripped from lines, and len(line) is 0. Every empty line increases the size of the lines list by 4 or 8 bytes. Since count is not changed, the loop is not bounded. Every LF byte sent by malicious sender increases memory consumption by 4 or 8 bytes.

I responded to your last review Serhiy, but the psf mail system reports a delivery failure, so you may have missed the notification as well as the other reviewers.

If sender sends a lot of empty lines and file is not None, LF or CRLF is stripped from lines

Oh, I missed that. Maybe give a weight of 4 to 8 bytes or even more to a line, this value being added to the bytes count whether the line is empty or not.
Do you have another suggestion ?

On 32-bit platform the size of empty bytes object is 17 bytes not counting padding and GC links. Plus 4 bytes for a pointer in a list. On 64 bit platform numbers are about twice larger. Therefore add at least 20-40 bytes per line.

Is not 100 MiB too large for a list in memory? For files we could use larger limit, but the problem is that file can be io.BytesIO().

The first offending message I found is number 183465:

>>> s.group("comp.lang.python")
('211 4329 179178 183507 comp.lang.python', 4329, 179178, 183507, 'comp.lang.python')
>>> s._putcmd("OVER 183465")
>>> s._getresp()
'224 Overview information for 183465 follows'
>>> line = s.file.readline()
>>> len(line)
2702
>>> [number, subject, from_header, date, message_id, references, bytes, lines, extra] = line.split(b"\t", 8)
>>> message_id
b'<mailman.122.1481898601.2322.python-list@python.org>'
>>> len(references)
2483
>>> len(references.split())
36

Assuming the References value is the only large field in an OVER response line, I would guess that a reasonable limit per line might be

200 bytes/message-id * 200 messages/thread = 40,000 bytes per OVER line

I agree with closing the session whenever the client’s protocol state is broken, but only for a different, tangential reason. See bpo-22350. Even if you raised an explicit exception when using a closed session, like in nntplib_maxbytes.patch, won’t that still cause the subsequent tests to fail? I think the best solution is to stop sharing one connection across multiple tests: bpo-19756.

Martin in response to your last review, I still hold to my opinion stated in msg283294 but this should not prevent this high priority issue to progress. Can you propose another patch.

I will try to come up with something in a few days

Max_over_line.patch is my attempt: Keep the original _MAXLINES = 2048 code, but override it with _MAX_OVER_LINE = 64000 when reading OVER response lines. I also added a test case.

Could @xdegaye make a PR for this?

What do you mean ?
What is "this" ?

Would that be anyway closed by PEP-594 (https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0594/#nntplib) which suggest the removal nntp ?

No, the module is still supported until EOL of Python 3.9. I expect 3.9 to go into security fix-only mode in 2024.

@mbussonn That's exactly the point: I completely disagree with removal of nntplib from the standard library, so I went through all bugs here related to it.

Matej, would you be interested to fork nntplib and take over maintenance and responsibility?

If that was the price of keeping nntplib inside of the Python standard library, yes.

I mean fork, as in maintain your own fork on PyPI and outside of Python core.

I understood, and I was saying that if you kick nntplib out of the standard library, than I will just embed it into my program and I won't bother to maintain it publicly.

Update: the nntplib module is now deprecated in 3.11 and set for removal in 3.13.

See PEP 594 – Removing dead batteries from the standard library and #91217.

Closed as the module is deprecated.