CVE-2022-50396

net: sched: fix memory leak in tcindex_set_parms

State
Published
Severity
5.5 Medium
Published
Sep 18, 2025
Updated
May 11, 2026
Reserved
Sep 17, 2025

Read the record on cve.org

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net: sched: fix memory leak in tcindex_set_parms

Syzkaller reports a memory leak as follows: ==================================== BUG: memory leak unreferenced object 0xffff88810c287f00 (size 256): comm "syz-executor105", pid 3600, jiffies 4294943292 (age 12.990s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace: [<ffffffff814cf9f0>] kmalloc_trace+0x20/0x90 mm/slab_common.c:1046 [<ffffffff839c9e07>] kmalloc include/linux/slab.h:576 [inline] [<ffffffff839c9e07>] kmalloc_array include/linux/slab.h:627 [inline] [<ffffffff839c9e07>] kcalloc include/linux/slab.h:659 [inline] [<ffffffff839c9e07>] tcf_exts_init include/net/pkt_cls.h:250 [inline] [<ffffffff839c9e07>] tcindex_set_parms+0xa7/0xbe0 net/sched/cls_tcindex.c:342 [<ffffffff839caa1f>] tcindex_change+0xdf/0x120 net/sched/cls_tcindex.c:553 [<ffffffff8394db62>] tc_new_tfilter+0x4f2/0x1100 net/sched/cls_api.c:2147 [<ffffffff8389e91c>] rtnetlink_rcv_msg+0x4dc/0x5d0 net/core/rtnetlink.c:6082 [<ffffffff839eba67>] netlink_rcv_skb+0x87/0x1d0 net/netlink/af_netlink.c:2540 [<ffffffff839eab87>] netlink_unicast_kernel net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1319 [inline] [<ffffffff839eab87>] netlink_unicast+0x397/0x4c0 net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1345 [<ffffffff839eb046>] netlink_sendmsg+0x396/0x710 net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1921 [<ffffffff8383e796>] sock_sendmsg_nosec net/socket.c:714 [inline] [<ffffffff8383e796>] sock_sendmsg+0x56/0x80 net/socket.c:734 [<ffffffff8383eb08>] ____sys_sendmsg+0x178/0x410 net/socket.c:2482 [<ffffffff83843678>] ___sys_sendmsg+0xa8/0x110 net/socket.c:2536 [<ffffffff838439c5>] __sys_sendmmsg+0x105/0x330 net/socket.c:2622 [<ffffffff83843c14>] __do_sys_sendmmsg net/socket.c:2651 [inline] [<ffffffff83843c14>] __se_sys_sendmmsg net/socket.c:2648 [inline] [<ffffffff83843c14>] __x64_sys_sendmmsg+0x24/0x30 net/socket.c:2648 [<ffffffff84605fd5>] do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline] [<ffffffff84605fd5>] do_syscall_64+0x35/0xb0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80 [<ffffffff84800087>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd ====================================

Kernel uses tcindex_change() to change an existing filter properties.

Yet the problem is that, during the process of changing, if `old_r` is retrieved from `p->perfect`, then kernel uses tcindex_alloc_perfect_hash() to newly allocate filter results, uses tcindex_filter_result_init() to clear the old filter result, without destroying its tcf_exts structure, which triggers the above memory leak.

To be more specific, there are only two source for the `old_r`, according to the tcindex_lookup(). `old_r` is retrieved from `p->perfect`, or `old_r` is retrieved from `p->h`.

* If `old_r` is retrieved from `p->perfect`, kernel uses tcindex_alloc_perfect_hash() to newly allocate the filter results. Then `r` is assigned with `cp->perfect + handle`, which is newly allocated. So condition `old_r && old_r != r` is true in this situation, and kernel uses tcindex_filter_result_init() to clear the old filter result, without destroying its tcf_exts structure

* If `old_r` is retrieved from `p->h`, then `p->perfect` is NULL according to the tcindex_lookup(). Considering that `cp->h` is directly copied from `p->h` and `p->perfect` is NULL, `r` is assigned with `tcindex_lookup(cp, handle)`, whose value should be the same as `old_r`, so condition `old_r && old_r != r` is false in this situation, kernel ignores using tcindex_filter_result_init() to clear the old filter result.

So only when `old_r` is retrieved from `p->perfect` does kernel use tcindex_filter_result_init() to clear the old filter result, which triggers the above memory leak.

Considering that there already exists a tc_filter_wq workqueue to destroy the old tcindex_d ---truncated---

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
3.15.5 MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HCISA-ADP

Weaknesses

  • CWE-401 Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime

Affected Products

ProductVersions
LinuxLinux
  • b9a24bb76bf611a5268ceffe04219e6ad264559b to before 53af9c793f644d5841d84d8e0ad83bd7ab47f3e0Affected
  • b9a24bb76bf611a5268ceffe04219e6ad264559b to before 01d0d2b8b4e3cf2110baba9371c0c3d04ad5c77bAffected
  • b9a24bb76bf611a5268ceffe04219e6ad264559b to before 55ac68b53f1cea1926ee2313afc5d66b91daad71Affected
  • b9a24bb76bf611a5268ceffe04219e6ad264559b to before 7a6fb69bbcb21e9ce13bdf18c008c268874f0480Affected
  • b9a24bb76bf611a5268ceffe04219e6ad264559b to before b314f6c3512108d7a656c5caf07c82d1bbbdc0f1Affected
  • b9a24bb76bf611a5268ceffe04219e6ad264559b to before 18c3fa7a7fdbb4d21dafc8a7710ae2c1680930f6Affected
  • b9a24bb76bf611a5268ceffe04219e6ad264559b to before 6c55953e232ea668731091d111066521f3b7719bAffected
  • b9a24bb76bf611a5268ceffe04219e6ad264559b to before 7c183dc0af472dec33d2c0786a5e356baa8cad19Affected
  • b9a24bb76bf611a5268ceffe04219e6ad264559b to before c4de6057e7c6654983acb63d939d26ac0d7bbf39Affected
  • b9a24bb76bf611a5268ceffe04219e6ad264559b to before facc4405e8b7407e03216207b1d1d640127de0c8Affected
  • b9a24bb76bf611a5268ceffe04219e6ad264559b to before 3abebc503a5148072052c229c6b04b329a420ecdAffected
  • b9a24bb76bf611a5268ceffe04219e6ad264559b to before 399ab7fe0fa0d846881685fd4e57e9a8ef7559f7Affected
  • b9a24bb76bf611a5268ceffe04219e6ad264559b to before 372ae77cf11d11fb118cbe2d37def9dd5f826abdAffected
LinuxLinux
  • 4.9Affected
  • before 4.9Not affected
  • 4.14.308 through 4.14.*Not affected
  • 4.19.276 through 4.19.*Not affected
  • 5.4.229 through 5.4.*Not affected
  • 5.4.235 through 5.4.*Not affected
  • 5.10.163 through 5.10.*Not affected
  • 5.10.173 through 5.10.*Not affected
  • 5.15.87 through 5.15.*Not affected
  • 5.15.100 through 5.15.*Not affected
  • 6.0.19 through 6.0.*Not affected
  • 6.1.5 through 6.1.*Not affected
  • 6.1.18 through 6.1.*Not affected
  • 6.2.5 through 6.2.*Not affected
  • 6.2 and laterNot affected

References

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