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Vulnerability record · CVE-2025-40306 · published 8 December 2025

CVE-2025-40306: In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: orangefs: fix xattr related buffer overfl…

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: orangefs: fix xattr related buffer overflow... Willy Tarreau <[email protected]> forwarded me a message from Disclosure <[email protected]> with the following warning: > The helper `xattr_key()` uses the pointer variable in the loop condition > rather than dereferencing it. As `key` is incremented, it remains non-NULL > (until it runs into unmapped memory), so the loop does not terminate on > valid C strings and will walk memory indefinitely, consuming CPU or hanging > the thread. I easily reproduced this with setfattr and getfattr, causing a kernel oops, hung user processes and corrupted orangefs files. Disclosure sent along a diff (not a patch) with a suggested fix, which I based this patch on. After xattr_key started working right, xfstest generic/069 exposed an xattr related memory leak that lead to OOM. xattr_key returns a hashed key. When adding xattrs to the orangefs xattr cache, orangefs used hash_add, a kernel hashing macro. hash_add also hashes the key using hash_log which resulted in additions to the xattr cache going to the wrong hash bucket. generic/069 tortures a single file and orangefs does a getattr for the xattr "security.capability" every time. Orangefs negative caches on xattrs which includes a kmalloc. Since adds to the xattr cache were going to the wrong bucket, every getattr for "security.capability" resulted in another kmalloc, none of which were ever freed. I changed the two uses of hash_add to hlist_add_head instead and the memory leak ceased and generic/069 quit throwing furniture.

7.8 CVSS 3.1 High EPSS 0.16% · top 95.5% Deferred
7.8CVSS 3.1 base score
0.16%EPSS exploitation probability, 30 days
NoNot in CISA KEV
0Affected product versions listed by NVD
8References
30 Jul 2026Last modified by NVD

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: orangefs: fix xattr related buffer overflow... Willy Tarreau <[email protected]> forwarded me a message from Disclosure <[email protected]> with the following warning: > The helper `xattr_key()` uses the pointer variable in the loop condition > rather than dereferencing it. As `key` is incremented, it remains non-NULL > (until it runs into unmapped memory), so the loop does not terminate on > valid C strings and will walk memory indefinitely, consuming CPU or hanging > the thread. I easily reproduced this with setfattr and getfattr, causing a kernel oops, hung user processes and corrupted orangefs files. Disclosure sent along a diff (not a patch) with a suggested fix, which I based this patch on. After xattr_key started working right, xfstest generic/069 exposed an xattr related memory leak that lead to OOM. xattr_key returns a hashed key. When adding xattrs to the orangefs xattr cache, orangefs used hash_add, a kernel hashing macro. hash_add also hashes the key using hash_log which resulted in additions to the xattr cache going to the wrong hash bucket. generic/069 tortures a single file and orangefs does a getattr for the xattr "security.capability" every time. Orangefs negative caches on xattrs which includes a kmalloc. Since adds to the xattr cache were going to the wrong bucket, every getattr for "security.capability" resulted in another kmalloc, none of which were ever freed. I changed the two uses of hash_add to hlist_add_head instead and the memory leak ceased and generic/069 quit throwing furniture.

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

References

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Source: NIST National Vulnerability Database (record CVE-2025-40306), CISA KEV, FIRST EPSS (scores of 2026-09-27). This page is refreshed as NVD updates the record.