In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: orangefs: fix xattr related buffer overflow... Willy Tarreau <w@1wt.eu> forwarded me a message from Disclosure <disclosure@aisle.com> with the following warning: > The helper `xattr_key()` uses the pointer variable in the loop condition > rather than dereferencing it. As `key` is incremented, it remains non-NULL > (until it runs into unmapped memory), so the loop does not terminate on > valid C strings and will walk memory indefinitely, consuming CPU or hanging > the thread. I easily reproduced this with setfattr and getfattr, causing a kernel oops, hung user processes and corrupted orangefs files. Disclosure sent along a diff (not a patch) with a suggested fix, which I based this patch on. After xattr_key started working right, xfstest generic/069 exposed an xattr related memory leak that lead to OOM. xattr_key returns a hashed key. When adding xattrs to the orangefs xattr cache, orangefs used hash_add, a kernel hashing macro. hash_add also hashes the key using hash_log which resulted in additions to the xattr cache going to the wrong hash bucket. generic/069 tortures a single file and orangefs does a getattr for the xattr "security.capability" every time. Orangefs negative caches on xattrs which includes a kmalloc. Since adds to the xattr cache were going to the wrong bucket, every getattr for "security.capability" resulted in another kmalloc, none of which were ever freed. I changed the two uses of hash_add to hlist_add_head instead and the memory leak ceased and generic/069 quit throwing furniture.
History

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 01:15:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: orangefs: fix xattr related buffer overflow... Willy Tarreau <w@1wt.eu> forwarded me a message from Disclosure <disclosure@aisle.com> with the following warning: > The helper `xattr_key()` uses the pointer variable in the loop condition > rather than dereferencing it. As `key` is incremented, it remains non-NULL > (until it runs into unmapped memory), so the loop does not terminate on > valid C strings and will walk memory indefinitely, consuming CPU or hanging > the thread. I easily reproduced this with setfattr and getfattr, causing a kernel oops, hung user processes and corrupted orangefs files. Disclosure sent along a diff (not a patch) with a suggested fix, which I based this patch on. After xattr_key started working right, xfstest generic/069 exposed an xattr related memory leak that lead to OOM. xattr_key returns a hashed key. When adding xattrs to the orangefs xattr cache, orangefs used hash_add, a kernel hashing macro. hash_add also hashes the key using hash_log which resulted in additions to the xattr cache going to the wrong hash bucket. generic/069 tortures a single file and orangefs does a getattr for the xattr "security.capability" every time. Orangefs negative caches on xattrs which includes a kmalloc. Since adds to the xattr cache were going to the wrong bucket, every getattr for "security.capability" resulted in another kmalloc, none of which were ever freed. I changed the two uses of hash_add to hlist_add_head instead and the memory leak ceased and generic/069 quit throwing furniture.
Title orangefs: fix xattr related buffer overflow...
First Time appeared Linux
Linux linux Kernel
CPEs cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Vendors & Products Linux
Linux linux Kernel
References

cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: Linux

Published: 2025-12-08T00:46:31.514Z

Updated: 2025-12-08T00:46:31.514Z

Reserved: 2025-04-16T07:20:57.185Z

Link: CVE-2025-40306

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Awaiting Analysis

Published: 2025-12-08T01:16:02.820

Modified: 2025-12-08T18:26:19.900

Link: CVE-2025-40306

cve-icon Redhat

No data.