Bug 2516261 (CVE-2026-72472)

Summary: CVE-2026-72472 kernel: nfs: use nfsi->rwsem to protect traversal of the file lock list
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: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the Network File System (NFS) component of the Linux kernel. Inadequate synchronization during the traversal of the file lock list can lead to a use-after-free (UAF) vulnerability. This occurs when certain functions release file locks prematurely while iterating, potentially allowing a local attacker to cause a denial of service or, in some cases, execute arbitrary code.
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-15 06:03:13 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

nfs: use nfsi->rwsem to protect traversal of the file lock list

Lingfeng identified a bug and suggested two solutions, but both appear
to have issues.

Generally, we cannot release flc_lock while iterating over the file lock
list to avoid use-after-free (UAF) problems with file locks. However,
functions like nfs_delegation_claim_locks and nfs4_reclaim_locks cannot
adhere to this rule because recover_lock or nfs4_lock_delegation_recall
may take a long time. To resolve this, NFS switches to using nfsi->rwsem
for the same protection, and nfs_reclaim_locks follows this approach.
Although nfs_delegation_claim_locks uses so_delegreturn_mutex instead,
this is inadequate since a single inode can have multiple nfs4_state
instances. Therefore, the fix is to also use nfsi->rwsem in this case.

Furthermore, after commit c69899a17ca4 ("NFSv4: Update of VFS byte range
lock must be atomic with the stateid update"), the functions
nfs4_locku_done and nfs4_lock_done also break this rule because they
call locks_lock_inode_wait without holding nfsi->rwsem. Simply adding
this protection could cause many deadlocks, so instead, the call to
locks_lock_inode_wait is moved into _nfs4_proc_setlk. Regarding the bug
fixed by commit c69899a17ca4 ("NFSv4: Update of VFS byte range
lock must be atomic with the stateid update"), it has been resolved
after commit 0460253913e5 ("NFSv4: nfs4_do_open() is incorrectly triggering
state recovery") because all slots are drained before calling
nfs4_do_reclaim, which prevents concurrent stateid changes along this path.
Also, nfs_delegation_claim_locks does not cause this concurrency either
since when _nfs4_proc_setlk is called with NFS_DELEGATED_STATE, no RPC is
sent, so nfs4_lock_done is not called. Therefore,
nfs4_lock_delegation_recall from nfs_delegation_claim_locks is the first
time the stateid is set.