{ "dataType": "CVE_RECORD", "dataVersion": "5.2", "cveMetadata": { "cveId": "CVE-2025-40007", "assignerOrgId": "416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67", "state": "PUBLISHED", "assignerShortName": "Linux", "dateReserved": "2025-04-16T07:20:57.151Z", "datePublished": "2025-10-20T15:26:53.880Z", "dateUpdated": "2026-05-23T16:01:14.674Z" }, "containers": { "cna": { "providerMetadata": { "orgId": "416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67", "shortName": "Linux", "dateUpdated": "2026-05-23T16:01:14.674Z" }, "descriptions": [ { "lang": "en", "value": "In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\nnetfs: fix reference leak\n\nCommit 20d72b00ca81 (\"netfs: Fix the request's work item to not\nrequire a ref\") modified netfs_alloc_request() to initialize the\nreference counter to 2 instead of 1. The rationale was that the\nrequet's \"work\" would release the second reference after completion\n(via netfs_{read,write}_collection_worker()). That works most of the\ntime if all goes well.\n\nHowever, it leaks this additional reference if the request is released\nbefore the I/O operation has been submitted: the error code path only\ndecrements the reference counter once and the work item will never be\nqueued because there will never be a completion.\n\nThis has caused outages of our whole server cluster today because\ntasks were blocked in netfs_wait_for_outstanding_io(), leading to\ndeadlocks in Ceph (another bug that I will address soon in another\npatch). This was caused by a netfs_pgpriv2_begin_copy_to_cache() call\nwhich failed in fscache_begin_write_operation(). The leaked\nnetfs_io_request was never completed, leaving `netfs_inode.io_count`\nwith a positive value forever.\n\nAll of this is super-fragile code. Finding out which code paths will\nlead to an eventual completion and which do not is hard to see:\n\n- Some functions like netfs_create_write_req() allocate a request, but\n will never submit any I/O.\n\n- netfs_unbuffered_read_iter_locked() calls netfs_unbuffered_read()\n and then netfs_put_request(); however, netfs_unbuffered_read() can\n also fail early before submitting the I/O request, therefore another\n netfs_put_request() call must be added there.\n\nA rule of thumb is that functions that return a `netfs_io_request` do\nnot submit I/O, and all of their callers must be checked.\n\nFor my taste, the whole netfs code needs an overhaul to make reference\ncounting easier to understand and less fragile & obscure. But to fix\nthis bug here and now and produce a patch that is adequate for a\nstable backport, I tried a minimal approach that quickly frees the\nrequest object upon early failure.\n\nI decided against adding a second netfs_put_request() each time\nbecause that would cause code duplication which obscures the code\nfurther. Instead, I added the function netfs_put_failed_request()\nwhich frees such a failed request synchronously under the assumption\nthat the reference count is exactly 2 (as initially set by\nnetfs_alloc_request() and never touched), verified by a\nWARN_ON_ONCE(). It then deinitializes the request object (without\ngoing through the \"cleanup_work\" indirection) and frees the allocation\n(with RCU protection to protect against concurrent access by\nnetfs_requests_seq_start()).\n\nAll code paths that fail early have been changed to call\nnetfs_put_failed_request() instead of netfs_put_request().\nAdditionally, I have added a netfs_put_request() call to\nnetfs_unbuffered_read() as explained above because the\nnetfs_put_failed_request() approach does not work there." } ], "affected": [ { "product": "Linux", "vendor": "Linux", "defaultStatus": "unaffected", "repo": "https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git", "programFiles": [ "fs/netfs/buffered_read.c", "fs/netfs/direct_read.c", "fs/netfs/direct_write.c", "fs/netfs/internal.h", "fs/netfs/objects.c", "fs/netfs/read_pgpriv2.c", "fs/netfs/read_single.c", "fs/netfs/write_issue.c" ], "versions": [ { "version": "20d72b00ca814d748f5663484e5c53bb2bf37a3a", "lessThan": "8df142e93098b4531fadb5dfcf93087649f570b3", "status": "affected", "versionType": "git" }, { "version": "20d72b00ca814d748f5663484e5c53bb2bf37a3a", "lessThan": "4d428dca252c858bfac691c31fa95d26cd008706", "status": "affected", "versionType": "git" }, { "version": "1a8360c2eed3b292ed654c2ac61b09de4a80e298", "status": "affected", "versionType": "git" }, { "version": "6.15.3", "lessThan": "6.16", "status": "affected", "versionType": "semver" } ] }, { "product": "Linux", "vendor": "Linux", "defaultStatus": "affected", "repo": "https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git", "programFiles": [ "fs/netfs/buffered_read.c", "fs/netfs/direct_read.c", "fs/netfs/direct_write.c", "fs/netfs/internal.h", "fs/netfs/objects.c", "fs/netfs/read_pgpriv2.c", "fs/netfs/read_single.c", "fs/netfs/write_issue.c" ], "versions": [ { "version": "6.16", "status": "affected" }, { "version": "0", "lessThan": "6.16", "status": "unaffected", "versionType": "semver" }, { "version": "6.16.10", "lessThanOrEqual": "6.16.*", "status": "unaffected", "versionType": "semver" }, { "version": "6.17", "lessThanOrEqual": "*", "status": "unaffected", "versionType": "original_commit_for_fix" } ] } ], "cpeApplicability": [ { "nodes": [ { "operator": "OR", "negate": false, "cpeMatch": [ { "vulnerable": true, "criteria": "cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*", "versionStartIncluding": "6.16", "versionEndExcluding": "6.16.10" }, { "vulnerable": true, "criteria": "cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*", "versionStartIncluding": "6.16", "versionEndExcluding": "6.17" }, { "vulnerable": true, "criteria": "cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*", "versionStartIncluding": "6.15.3" } ] } ] } ], "references": [ { "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8df142e93098b4531fadb5dfcf93087649f570b3" }, { "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4d428dca252c858bfac691c31fa95d26cd008706" } ], "title": "netfs: fix reference leak", "x_generator": { "engine": "bippy-1.2.0" } } } }