Bug 2363448 (CVE-2022-49890)

Summary: CVE-2022-49890 kernel: capabilities: fix potential memleak on error path from vfs_getxattr_alloc()
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: dfreiber, drow, jburrell, vkumar
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-05-01 15:05:02 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

capabilities: fix potential memleak on error path from vfs_getxattr_alloc()

In cap_inode_getsecurity(), we will use vfs_getxattr_alloc() to
complete the memory allocation of tmpbuf, if we have completed
the memory allocation of tmpbuf, but failed to call handler->get(...),
there will be a memleak in below logic:

  |-- ret = (int)vfs_getxattr_alloc(mnt_userns, ...)
    |           /* ^^^ alloc for tmpbuf */
    |-- value = krealloc(*xattr_value, error + 1, flags)
    |           /* ^^^ alloc memory */
    |-- error = handler->get(handler, ...)
    |           /* error! */
    |-- *xattr_value = value
    |           /* xattr_value is &tmpbuf (memory leak!) */

So we will try to free(tmpbuf) after vfs_getxattr_alloc() fails to fix it.

[PM: subject line and backtrace tweaks]

Comment 1 Avinash Hanwate 2025-05-02 03:19:12 UTC
Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2025050157-CVE-2022-49890-345f@gregkh/T