Bug 2532288 (CVE-2026-89714)

Summary: CVE-2026-89714 kernel: NFS: fix delegation_hash_table leak when nfs4_server_common_setup() fails
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security <prodsec-ir-bot>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: low Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: unspecifiedCC: akhatavk, aos-team-art-private, asdas, dpaolell, jdelft, jupierce, lgarciaa, mbiarnes, ppalepu, ppostler, prdhamdh, rhel-process-autobot, sghai, sidsharm, suppawar, vlaad, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Network File System (NFS) component. When an NFSv4 mount attempt fails, the nfs4_server_common_setup() function does not properly free a memory allocation for the delegation hash table. A client that persistently retries a failed mount can exploit this to cause an unbounded kernel memory leak. This can lead to system instability and a Denial of Service (DoS) due to memory exhaustion.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-09-11 22:09:13 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

NFS: fix delegation_hash_table leak when nfs4_server_common_setup() fails

nfs4_server_common_setup() allocates server->delegation_hash_table
first, but server->destroy - the only path that frees the table via
nfs4_destroy_server() - is not assigned until the very end of the
function. If any intermediate step fails (the is_ds_only_client()
check, nfs4_init_session(), nfs4_get_rootfh(), or nfs_probe_server()),
the function returns with server->destroy still NULL, so the caller's
nfs_free_server() skips the destroy callback and the hash table is
leaked (4 KiB per attempt with the default delegation watermark).

This is trivially reachable from userspace: every failed NFSv4 mount
leaks one allocation. A client that persistently retries a mount that
cannot succeed leaks kernel memory without bound. Observed in
production where a Longhorn backup poller retried mount.nfs4 against
an NFSv3-only server roughly 10 times per second, leaking ~3.4 GiB of
unreclaimable slab (kmalloc-rnd-13-4k) per day; the node accumulated
12 GiB of leaked slab before the source was identified via the
kmem:kmalloc tracepoint (call_site=nfs4_delegation_hash_alloc).

Reproducer:

  # server exports NFSv3 only (or export path absent for v4)
  while :; do mount -t nfs4 <server>:/missing /mnt; done
  # watch SUnreclaim in /proc/meminfo grow 4 KiB per iteration

Free the table on the error paths between the allocation and the
assignment of server->destroy.