CVE-2025-40212

Published: November 25, 2025Last modified: November 25, 2025

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nfsd: fix refcount leak in nfsd_set_fh_dentry() nfsd exports a "pseudo root filesystem" which is used by NFSv4 to find the various exported filesystems using LOOKUP requests from a known root filehandle. NFSv3 uses the MOUNT protocol to find those exported filesystems and so is not given access to the pseudo root filesystem. If a v3 (or v2) client uses a filehandle from that filesystem, nfsd_set_fh_dentry() will report an error, but still stores the export in "struct svc_fh" even though it also drops the reference (exp_put()). This means that when fh_put() is called an extra reference will be dropped which can lead to use-after-free and possible denial of service. Normal NFS usage will not provide a pseudo-root filehandle to a v3 client. This bug can only be triggered by the client synthesising an incorrect filehandle. To fix this we move the assignments to the svc_fh later, after all possible error cases have been detected.

Status

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8a7348a9ed70bda1c1f51d3f1815bcbdf9f3b38c
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b6bc86ce3944b10b9fc181fc00c1a520a20ed965
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c83d7365cec5eb5ebeeee2a72e29b4ca58a7e4c2