In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
netfs: fix reference leak
Commit 20d72b00ca81 ("netfs: Fix the request's work item to not
require a ref") modified netfs_alloc_request() to initialize the
reference counter to 2 instead of 1. The rationale was that the
requet's "work" would release the second reference after completion
(via netfs_{read,write}_collection_worker()). That works most of the
time if all goes well.
However, it leaks this additional reference if the request is released
before the I/O operation has been submitted: the error code path only
decrements the reference counter once and the work item will never be
queued because there will never be a completion.
This has caused outages of our whole server cluster today because
tasks were blocked in netfs_wait_for_outstanding_io(), leading to
deadlocks in Ceph (another bug that I will address soon in another
patch). This was caused by a netfs_pgpriv2_begin_copy_to_cache() call
which failed in fscache_begin_write_operation(). The leaked
netfs_io_request was never completed, leaving `netfs_inode.io_count`
with a positive value forever.
All of this is super-fragile code. Finding out which code paths will
lead to an eventual completion and which do not is hard to see:
- Some functions like netfs_create_write_req() allocate a request, but
will never submit any I/O.
- netfs_unbuffered_read_iter_locked() calls netfs_unbuffered_read()
and then netfs_put_request(); however, netfs_unbuffered_read() can
also fail early before submitting the I/O request, therefore another
netfs_put_request() call must be added there.
A rule of thumb is that functions that return a `netfs_io_request` do
not submit I/O, and all of their callers must be checked.
For my taste, the whole netfs code needs an overhaul to make reference
counting easier to understand and less fragile & obscure. But to fix
this bug here and now and produce a patch that is adequate for a
stable backport, I tried a minimal approach that quickly frees the
request object upon early failure.
I decided against adding a second netfs_put_request() each time
because that would cause code duplication which obscures the code
further. Instead, I added the function netfs_put_failed_request()
which frees such a failed request synchronously under the assumption
that the reference count is exactly 2 (as initially set by
netfs_alloc_request() and never touched), verified by a
WARN_ON_ONCE(). It then deinitializes the request object (without
going through the "cleanup_work" indirection) and frees the allocation
(with RCU protection to protect against concurrent access by
netfs_requests_seq_start()).
All code paths that fail early have been changed to call
netfs_put_failed_request() instead of netfs_put_request().
Additionally, I have added a netfs_put_request() call to
netfs_unbuffered_read() as explained above because the
netfs_put_failed_request() approach does not work there.
netfs: fix reference leak
Commit 20d72b00ca81 ("netfs: Fix the request's work item to not
require a ref") modified netfs_alloc_request() to initialize the
reference counter to 2 instead of 1. The rationale was that the
requet's "work" would release the second reference after completion
(via netfs_{read,write}_collection_worker()). That works most of the
time if all goes well.
However, it leaks this additional reference if the request is released
before the I/O operation has been submitted: the error code path only
decrements the reference counter once and the work item will never be
queued because there will never be a completion.
This has caused outages of our whole server cluster today because
tasks were blocked in netfs_wait_for_outstanding_io(), leading to
deadlocks in Ceph (another bug that I will address soon in another
patch). This was caused by a netfs_pgpriv2_begin_copy_to_cache() call
which failed in fscache_begin_write_operation(). The leaked
netfs_io_request was never completed, leaving `netfs_inode.io_count`
with a positive value forever.
All of this is super-fragile code. Finding out which code paths will
lead to an eventual completion and which do not is hard to see:
- Some functions like netfs_create_write_req() allocate a request, but
will never submit any I/O.
- netfs_unbuffered_read_iter_locked() calls netfs_unbuffered_read()
and then netfs_put_request(); however, netfs_unbuffered_read() can
also fail early before submitting the I/O request, therefore another
netfs_put_request() call must be added there.
A rule of thumb is that functions that return a `netfs_io_request` do
not submit I/O, and all of their callers must be checked.
For my taste, the whole netfs code needs an overhaul to make reference
counting easier to understand and less fragile & obscure. But to fix
this bug here and now and produce a patch that is adequate for a
stable backport, I tried a minimal approach that quickly frees the
request object upon early failure.
I decided against adding a second netfs_put_request() each time
because that would cause code duplication which obscures the code
further. Instead, I added the function netfs_put_failed_request()
which frees such a failed request synchronously under the assumption
that the reference count is exactly 2 (as initially set by
netfs_alloc_request() and never touched), verified by a
WARN_ON_ONCE(). It then deinitializes the request object (without
going through the "cleanup_work" indirection) and frees the allocation
(with RCU protection to protect against concurrent access by
netfs_requests_seq_start()).
All code paths that fail early have been changed to call
netfs_put_failed_request() instead of netfs_put_request().
Additionally, I have added a netfs_put_request() call to
netfs_unbuffered_read() as explained above because the
netfs_put_failed_request() approach does not work there.
Metrics
Affected Vendors & Products
No data.
No data.
No data.
No data.
Advisories
No advisories yet.
Fixes
Solution
No solution given by the vendor.
Workaround
No workaround given by the vendor.
References
History
Mon, 20 Oct 2025 15:45:00 +0000
| Type | Values Removed | Values Added |
|---|---|---|
| Description | In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: netfs: fix reference leak Commit 20d72b00ca81 ("netfs: Fix the request's work item to not require a ref") modified netfs_alloc_request() to initialize the reference counter to 2 instead of 1. The rationale was that the requet's "work" would release the second reference after completion (via netfs_{read,write}_collection_worker()). That works most of the time if all goes well. However, it leaks this additional reference if the request is released before the I/O operation has been submitted: the error code path only decrements the reference counter once and the work item will never be queued because there will never be a completion. This has caused outages of our whole server cluster today because tasks were blocked in netfs_wait_for_outstanding_io(), leading to deadlocks in Ceph (another bug that I will address soon in another patch). This was caused by a netfs_pgpriv2_begin_copy_to_cache() call which failed in fscache_begin_write_operation(). The leaked netfs_io_request was never completed, leaving `netfs_inode.io_count` with a positive value forever. All of this is super-fragile code. Finding out which code paths will lead to an eventual completion and which do not is hard to see: - Some functions like netfs_create_write_req() allocate a request, but will never submit any I/O. - netfs_unbuffered_read_iter_locked() calls netfs_unbuffered_read() and then netfs_put_request(); however, netfs_unbuffered_read() can also fail early before submitting the I/O request, therefore another netfs_put_request() call must be added there. A rule of thumb is that functions that return a `netfs_io_request` do not submit I/O, and all of their callers must be checked. For my taste, the whole netfs code needs an overhaul to make reference counting easier to understand and less fragile & obscure. But to fix this bug here and now and produce a patch that is adequate for a stable backport, I tried a minimal approach that quickly frees the request object upon early failure. I decided against adding a second netfs_put_request() each time because that would cause code duplication which obscures the code further. Instead, I added the function netfs_put_failed_request() which frees such a failed request synchronously under the assumption that the reference count is exactly 2 (as initially set by netfs_alloc_request() and never touched), verified by a WARN_ON_ONCE(). It then deinitializes the request object (without going through the "cleanup_work" indirection) and frees the allocation (with RCU protection to protect against concurrent access by netfs_requests_seq_start()). All code paths that fail early have been changed to call netfs_put_failed_request() instead of netfs_put_request(). Additionally, I have added a netfs_put_request() call to netfs_unbuffered_read() as explained above because the netfs_put_failed_request() approach does not work there. | |
| Title | netfs: fix reference leak | |
| References |
|
MITRE
Status: PUBLISHED
Assigner: Linux
Published:
Updated: 2025-10-20T15:26:53.880Z
Reserved: 2025-04-16T07:20:57.151Z
Link: CVE-2025-40007
Vulnrichment
No data.
NVD
Status : Received
Published: 2025-10-20T16:15:37.357
Modified: 2025-10-20T16:15:37.357
Link: CVE-2025-40007
Redhat
No data.
OpenCVE Enrichment
No data.