REDHAT-BUG-2519521: High severity 389 Project 389 Directory Server vulnerability

389 Directory Server's SELFDN ACI bind-rule evaluator (ldap/servers/plugins/acl/acllas.c) compares a client's bind DN against a stored attribute value using a plain string comparison. An anonymous LDAP bind has an empty-string client DN, and 389-ds's own DN syntax validator (ldap/servers/plugins/syntaxes/dn.c) accepts zero-length attribute values as valid. As a result, any ACI written as userattr="X#SELFDN", where attribute X can legitimately hold an empty value, is satisfied by an anonymous client with no authentication of any kind.

This was originally reported (PSIRTSUPT-21812) as part of a FreeIPA-specific admin-takeover chain, but independently reproduced standalone against plain 389-ds-base (389-ds-base-3.2.2-2.fc44) with zero FreeIPA schema, plugins, or ACIs present: a minimal test ACI (allow (add) userattr = "owner#SELFDN") was defeated by an anonymous bind with owner: set to an empty value, while a control case (non-empty, non-matching value) was correctly refused. This confirms the defect is general to the ACI evaluation engine, not specific to any consuming application.

Any 389-ds/RHDS deployment that defines a SELFDN-based ACI on an attribute permitted to hold an empty value is affected. Reported and confirmed as part of the PSIRTSUPT-21812 investigation; see linked Jira ticket for full technical writeup and reproduction evidence.