CyberRota Analysis
AI-GeneratedThe vulnerability affects the Linux kernel's NFSv4 implementation, where a failure in the `nfs4_server_common_setup()` function can lead to a memory leak of the `delegation_hash_table`. This leak occurs because the cleanup callback for the hash table is not assigned until the end of the function, allowing repeated failed NFSv4 mount attempts to accumulate unreclaimable memory. Organizations utilizing NFSv4 in their Linux environments, especially those with high retry rates for failed mounts, should prioritize addressing this issue to prevent significant memory consumption and potential system instability.
Original NVD Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: NFS: fix delegation_hash_table leak when nfs4_server_common_setup() fails nfs4_server_common_setup() allocates server->delegation_hash_table first, but server->destroy - the only path that frees the table via nfs4_destroy_server() - is not assigned until the very end of the function. If any intermediate step fails (the is_ds_only_client() check, nfs4_init_session(), nfs4_get_rootfh(), or nfs_probe_server()), the function returns with server->destroy still NULL, so the caller's nfs_free_server() skips the destroy callback and the hash table is leaked (4 KiB per attempt with the default delegation watermark). This is trivially reachable from userspace: every failed NFSv4 mount leaks one allocation. A client that persistently retries a mount that cannot succeed leaks kernel memory without bound. Observed in production where a Longhorn backup poller retried mount.nfs4 against an NFSv3-only server roughly 10 times per second, leaking ~3.4 GiB of unreclaimable slab (kmalloc-rnd-13-4k) per day; the node accumulated 12 GiB of leaked slab before the source was identified via the kmem:kmalloc tracepoint (call_site=nfs4_delegation_hash_alloc). Reproducer: # server exports NFSv3 only (or export path absent for v4) while :; do mount -t nfs4 <server>:/missing /mnt; done # watch SUnreclaim in /proc/meminfo grow 4 KiB per iteration Free the table on the error paths between the allocation and the assignment of server->destroy.