Bug 2461527 (CVE-2026-31654)

Summary: CVE-2026-31654 kernel: mm/vma: fix memory leak in __mmap_region()
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security <prodsec-ir-bot>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: unspecified Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: ---
Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel. When a shared memory mapping is created for `/dev/zero`, a memory leak can occur if the virtual memory area (VMA) allocation fails. This happens because a newly allocated file, intended to back the mapping, is not properly released in the error path, leading to unreferenced memory objects. An attacker could potentially exploit this to cause a denial of service due to resource exhaustion.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-04-24 15:06:40 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

mm/vma: fix memory leak in __mmap_region()

commit 605f6586ecf7 ("mm/vma: do not leak memory when .mmap_prepare
swaps the file") handled the success path by skipping get_file() via
file_doesnt_need_get, but missed the error path.

When /dev/zero is mmap'd with MAP_SHARED, mmap_zero_prepare() calls
shmem_zero_setup_desc() which allocates a new shmem file to back the
mapping. If __mmap_new_vma() subsequently fails, this replacement
file is never fput()'d - the original is released by
ksys_mmap_pgoff(), but nobody releases the new one.

Add fput() for the swapped file in the error path.

Reproducible with fault injection.

FAULT_INJECTION: forcing a failure.
name failslab, interval 1, probability 0, space 0, times 1
CPU: 2 UID: 0 PID: 366 Comm: syz.7.14 Not tainted 7.0.0-rc6 #2 PREEMPT(full)
Hardware name: QEMU Ubuntu 24.04 PC v2 (i440FX + PIIX, arch_caps fix, 1996), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2 04/01/2014
Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 dump_stack_lvl+0x164/0x1f0
 should_fail_ex+0x525/0x650
 should_failslab+0xdf/0x140
 kmem_cache_alloc_noprof+0x78/0x630
 vm_area_alloc+0x24/0x160
 __mmap_region+0xf6b/0x2660
 mmap_region+0x2eb/0x3a0
 do_mmap+0xc79/0x1240
 vm_mmap_pgoff+0x252/0x4c0
 ksys_mmap_pgoff+0xf8/0x120
 __x64_sys_mmap+0x12a/0x190
 do_syscall_64+0xa9/0x580
 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e
 </TASK>

kmemleak: 1 new suspected memory leaks (see /sys/kernel/debug/kmemleak)
BUG: memory leak
unreferenced object 0xffff8881118aca80 (size 360):
  comm "syz.7.14", pid 366, jiffies 4294913255
  hex dump (first 32 bytes):
    00 00 00 00 ad 4e ad de ff ff ff ff 00 00 00 00  .....N..........
    ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff c0 28 4d ae ff ff ff ff  .........(M.....
  backtrace (crc db0f53bc):
    kmem_cache_alloc_noprof+0x3ab/0x630
    alloc_empty_file+0x5a/0x1e0
    alloc_file_pseudo+0x135/0x220
    __shmem_file_setup+0x274/0x420
    shmem_zero_setup_desc+0x9c/0x170
    mmap_zero_prepare+0x123/0x140
    __mmap_region+0xdda/0x2660
    mmap_region+0x2eb/0x3a0
    do_mmap+0xc79/0x1240
    vm_mmap_pgoff+0x252/0x4c0
    ksys_mmap_pgoff+0xf8/0x120
    __x64_sys_mmap+0x12a/0x190
    do_syscall_64+0xa9/0x580
    entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e

Found by syzkaller.