LMDeploy is a toolkit for compressing, deploying, and serving large language models. Starting in version 0.9.2 and prior to version 0.16.0, LMDeploy's PyTorch DistServe/PD-disaggregation control plane used `recv_pyobj()` to deserialize messages received through a ZeroMQ PULL socket. PyZMQ implements `recv_pyobj()` using Python pickle deserialization, which can execute arbitrary code while reconstructing an object. The peer address used by the receiver was supplied through the `POST /distserve/p2p_connect` HTTP endpoint. An attacker who could reach an affected DistServe API server could cause the server to connect to an attacker-controlled ZeroMQ endpoint and deserialize a crafted pickle payload. API-key authentication is not enabled unless the operator explicitly configures it. As a result, affected DistServe deployments without API keys allowed unauthenticated remote code execution with the privileges of the LMDeploy serving process. This issue affects the PyTorch backend when PD-disaggregation/DistServe is enabled. Ordinary deployments that do not use the affected disaggregated-serving path do not expose this data flow. The fix was released in LMDeploy 0.16.0. Users who cannot upgrade immediately should prevent untrusted clients from reaching `/distserve/*` endpoints, restrict the DistServe HTTP and ZeroMQ control planes to trusted cluster networks, configure API-key authentication, and block arbitrary outbound ZeroMQ connections from serving nodes. These measures reduce e…

Affected: PyPI: lmdeploy

## Summary

LMDeploy's PyTorch DistServe/PD-disaggregation control plane used `recv_pyobj()` to deserialize messages received through a ZeroMQ PULL socket. PyZMQ implements `recv_pyobj()` using Python pickle deserialization, which can execute arbitrary code while reconstructing an object.

The peer address used by the receiver was supplied through the `POST /distserve/p2p_connect` HTTP endpoint. An attacker who could reach an affected DistServe API server could cause the server to connect to an attacker-controlled ZeroMQ endpoint and deserialize a crafted pickle payload.

API-key authentication is not enabled unless the operator explicitly configures it. As a result, affected DistServe deployments without API keys allowed unauthenticated remote code execution with the privileges of the LMDeploy serving process.

This issue affects the PyTorch backend when PD-disaggregation/DistServe is enabled. Ordinary deployments that do not use the affected disaggregated-serving path do not expose this data flow.

## Affected components

- HTTP entry point: `lmdeploy/serve/openai/endpoints/distserve.py`, `POST /distserve/p2p_connect` - Attacker-controlled peer address: `DistServeConnectionRequest.remote_engine_endpoint_info.zmq_address` - Vulnerable receiver: `lmdeploy/pytorch/disagg/conn/engine_conn.py`, `EngineP2PConnection.handle_zmq_recv()` - Unsafe operation: `recv_pyobj()`, which performs pickle deserialization

## Vulnerable data flow

1. A caller submits a DistServe P2P…