CVE-2025-21792

ax25: Fix refcount leak caused by setting SO_BINDTODEVICE sockopt

State
Published
Severity
7.8 High
Published
Feb 27, 2025
Updated
Aug 5, 2026
Reserved
Dec 29, 2024

Read the record on cve.org

Description

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

ax25: Fix refcount leak caused by setting SO_BINDTODEVICE sockopt

If an AX25 device is bound to a socket by setting the SO_BINDTODEVICE socket option, a refcount leak will occur in ax25_release().

Commit 9fd75b66b8f6 ("ax25: Fix refcount leaks caused by ax25_cb_del()") added decrement of device refcounts in ax25_release(). In order for that to work correctly the refcounts must already be incremented when the device is bound to the socket. An AX25 device can be bound to a socket by either calling ax25_bind() or setting SO_BINDTODEVICE socket option. In both cases the refcounts should be incremented, but in fact it is done only in ax25_bind().

This bug leads to the following issue reported by Syzkaller:

================================================================ refcount_t: decrement hit 0; leaking memory. WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 5932 at lib/refcount.c:31 refcount_warn_saturate+0x1ed/0x210 lib/refcount.c:31 Modules linked in: CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 5932 Comm: syz-executor424 Not tainted 6.13.0-rc4-syzkaller-00110-g4099a71718b0 #0 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2~bpo12+1 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:refcount_warn_saturate+0x1ed/0x210 lib/refcount.c:31 Call Trace: <TASK> __refcount_dec include/linux/refcount.h:336 [inline] refcount_dec include/linux/refcount.h:351 [inline] ref_tracker_free+0x710/0x820 lib/ref_tracker.c:236 netdev_tracker_free include/linux/netdevice.h:4156 [inline] netdev_put include/linux/netdevice.h:4173 [inline] netdev_put include/linux/netdevice.h:4169 [inline] ax25_release+0x33f/0xa10 net/ax25/af_ax25.c:1069 __sock_release+0xb0/0x270 net/socket.c:640 sock_close+0x1c/0x30 net/socket.c:1408 ... do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:52 [inline] do_syscall_64+0xcd/0x250 arch/x86/entry/common.c:83 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f ... </TASK> ================================================================

Fix the implementation of ax25_setsockopt() by adding increment of refcounts for the new device bound, and decrement of refcounts for the old unbound device.

Scores

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

Weaknesses

The record names no weakness.

Affected Products

ProductVersions
LinuxLinux
  • 9fd75b66b8f68498454d685dc4ba13192ae069b0 to before 90056ece99966182dc0e367f3fd2afab46ada847Affected
  • 9fd75b66b8f68498454d685dc4ba13192ae069b0 to before 94a0de224ed52eb2ecd4f4cb1b937b674c9fb955Affected
  • 9fd75b66b8f68498454d685dc4ba13192ae069b0 to before b58f7ca86a7b8e480c06e30c5163c5d2f4e24023Affected
  • 9fd75b66b8f68498454d685dc4ba13192ae069b0 to before 470bda72fda0fcf54300466d70ce2de62f7835d2Affected
  • 9fd75b66b8f68498454d685dc4ba13192ae069b0 to before bca0902e61731a75fc4860c8720168d9f1bae3b6Affected
  • c44a453ffe16eb08acdc6129ac4fa0192dbc0456Affected
  • de55a1338e6a48ff1e41ea8db1432496fbe2a62bAffected
  • 9e1e088a57c23251f1cfe9601bbd90ade2ea73b9Affected
  • b20a5ab0f5fb175750c6bafd4cf12daccf00c738Affected
  • 452ae92b99062d2f6a34324eaf705a3b7eac9f8bAffected
  • 534156dd4ed768e30a43de0036f45dca7c54818fAffected
  • 4.14.277 to before 4.15Affected
  • 4.19.240 to before 4.20Affected
  • 5.4.190 to before 5.5Affected
  • 5.10.112 to before 5.11Affected
  • 5.15.35 to before 5.16Affected
  • 5.17.2 to before 5.18Affected
LinuxLinux
  • 5.18Affected
  • before 5.18Not affected
  • 6.1.129 through 6.1.*Not affected
  • 6.6.79 through 6.6.*Not affected
  • 6.12.16 through 6.12.*Not affected
  • 6.13.4 through 6.13.*Not affected
  • 6.14 and laterNot affected

References

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