Puppy Raffle

AI First Flight #1
Beginner FriendlyFoundrySolidityNFT
EXP
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Submission Details
Severity: medium
Valid

O(n²) duplicate check in `enterRaffle` enables a gas-exhaustion denial of service

Description

  • enterRaffle registers new players and rejects duplicate addresses.

  • Duplicate detection is a nested loop that re-scans every pair in the full players array on every call. The comparison count grows as n²/2, so the gas to enter rises quadratically with how many players already exist — eventually exceeding the block gas limit and making entry impossible.

// Check for duplicates
@> for (uint256 i = 0; i < players.length - 1; i++) {
@> for (uint256 j = i + 1; j < players.length; j++) {
@> require(players[i] != players[j], "PuppyRaffle: Duplicate player");
}
}

Risk

Likelihood:

  • When the player array grows large through ordinary participation, raising every subsequent entrant's gas.

  • When an attacker front-loads a large batch of players in a single call to deliberately accelerate the lockout.

Impact:

  • Late entrants pay escalating, eventually prohibitive gas for the same action (griefing / unfairness).

  • Past a few hundred players a single enterRaffle exceeds the block gas limit and can never be included, permanently freezing new entries.

Proof of Concept

function testEnterRaffleDosQuadraticGas() public {
uint256 cohort = 20;
// Early cohort: 20 players into an empty raffle.
uint256 gasStart = gasleft();
puppyRaffle.enterRaffle{value: entranceFee * cohort}(_seq(100, cohort));
uint256 gasEarly = gasStart - gasleft();
// Grow the array to 100 players.
puppyRaffle.enterRaffle{value: entranceFee * 80}(_seq(200, 80));
// Late cohort: identical 20-player work, now on top of 100 players.
gasStart = gasleft();
puppyRaffle.enterRaffle{value: entranceFee * cohort}(_seq(300, cohort));
uint256 gasLate = gasStart - gasleft();
assertGt(gasLate, gasEarly * 3);
}
function _seq(uint256 start, uint256 n) internal pure returns (address[] memory a) {
a = new address[](n);
for (uint256 i = 0; i < n; i++) {
a[i] = address(uint160(start + i));
}
}

Verified (Forge per-call gas): the early cohort costs ~647,000 gas; the identical late cohort costs ~6,454,000 gas — a ~9.6× increase for the same work, purely because 100 players already existed.

Recommended Mitigation

Detect duplicates in O(1) with a per-round membership mapping instead of the array scan:

+ mapping(uint256 => mapping(address => bool)) private isPlayerInRound;
+ uint256 private roundId;
...
function enterRaffle(address[] memory newPlayers) public payable {
require(msg.value == entranceFee * newPlayers.length, "PuppyRaffle: Must send enough to enter raffle");
for (uint256 i = 0; i < newPlayers.length; i++) {
+ require(!isPlayerInRound[roundId][newPlayers[i]], "PuppyRaffle: Duplicate player");
+ isPlayerInRound[roundId][newPlayers[i]] = true;
players.push(newPlayers[i]);
}
- // Check for duplicates
- for (uint256 i = 0; i < players.length - 1; i++) {
- for (uint256 j = i + 1; j < players.length; j++) {
- require(players[i] != players[j], "PuppyRaffle: Duplicate player");
- }
- }
emit RaffleEnter(newPlayers);
}

Bump roundId in selectWinner alongside delete players so membership resets each round (a mapping is not cleared by delete). Alternatively, drop duplicate prevention entirely — a duplicate only means someone paid twice to enter twice.

Updates

Lead Judging Commences

ai-first-flight-judge Lead Judge about 2 hours ago
Submission Judgement Published
Validated
Assigned finding tags:

[M-01] `PuppyRaffle: enterRaffle` Use of gas extensive duplicate check leads to Denial of Service, making subsequent participants to spend much more gas than prev ones to enter

## Description `enterRaffle` function uses gas inefficient duplicate check that causes leads to Denial of Service, making subsequent participants to spend much more gas than previous users to enter. ## Vulnerability Details In the `enterRaffle` function, to check duplicates, it loops through the `players` array. As the `player` array grows, it will make more checks, which leads the later user to pay more gas than the earlier one. More users in the Raffle, more checks a user have to make leads to pay more gas. ## Impact As the arrays grows significantly over time, it will make the function unusable due to block gas limit. This is not a fair approach and lead to bad user experience. ## POC In existing test suit, add this test to see the difference b/w gas for users. once added run `forge test --match-test testEnterRaffleIsGasInefficient -vvvvv` in terminal. you will be able to see logs in terminal. ```solidity function testEnterRaffleIsGasInefficient() public { vm.startPrank(owner); vm.txGasPrice(1); /// First we enter 100 participants uint256 firstBatch = 100; address[] memory firstBatchPlayers = new address[](firstBatch); for(uint256 i = 0; i < firstBatchPlayers; i++) { firstBatch[i] = address(i); } uint256 gasStart = gasleft(); puppyRaffle.enterRaffle{value: entranceFee * firstBatch}(firstBatchPlayers); uint256 gasEnd = gasleft(); uint256 gasUsedForFirstBatch = (gasStart - gasEnd) * txPrice; console.log("Gas cost of the first 100 partipants is:", gasUsedForFirstBatch); /// Now we enter 100 more participants uint256 secondBatch = 200; address[] memory secondBatchPlayers = new address[](secondBatch); for(uint256 i = 100; i < secondBatchPlayers; i++) { secondBatch[i] = address(i); } gasStart = gasleft(); puppyRaffle.enterRaffle{value: entranceFee * secondBatch}(secondBatchPlayers); gasEnd = gasleft(); uint256 gasUsedForSecondBatch = (gasStart - gasEnd) * txPrice; console.log("Gas cost of the next 100 participant is:", gasUsedForSecondBatch); vm.stopPrank(owner); } ``` ## Recommendations Here are some of recommendations, any one of that can be used to mitigate this risk. 1. User a mapping to check duplicates. For this approach you to declare a variable `uint256 raffleID`, that way each raffle will have unique id. Add a mapping from player address to raffle id to keep of users for particular round. ```diff + uint256 public raffleID; + mapping (address => uint256) public usersToRaffleId; . . function enterRaffle(address[] memory newPlayers) public payable { require(msg.value == entranceFee * newPlayers.length, "PuppyRaffle: Must send enough to enter raffle"); for (uint256 i = 0; i < newPlayers.length; i++) { players.push(newPlayers[i]); + usersToRaffleId[newPlayers[i]] = true; } // Check for duplicates + for (uint256 i = 0; i < newPlayers.length; i++){ + require(usersToRaffleId[i] != raffleID, "PuppyRaffle: Already a participant"); - for (uint256 i = 0; i < players.length - 1; i++) { - for (uint256 j = i + 1; j < players.length; j++) { - require(players[i] != players[j], "PuppyRaffle: Duplicate player"); - } } emit RaffleEnter(newPlayers); } . . . function selectWinner() external { //Existing code + raffleID = raffleID + 1; } ``` 2. Allow duplicates participants, As technically you can't stop people participants more than once. As players can use new address to enter. ```solidity function enterRaffle(address[] memory newPlayers) public payable { require(msg.value == entranceFee * newPlayers.length, "PuppyRaffle: Must send enough to enter raffle"); for (uint256 i = 0; i < newPlayers.length; i++) { players.push(newPlayers[i]); } emit RaffleEnter(newPlayers); } ```

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