ceph: fix memory leak in ceph_mds_auth_match()
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Local
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- Denial of service
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · None · High
- Fix status
- Partial Red Hat: 2 without a fix
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CISA ADP. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat. Impact type from CWE-401.
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ceph: fix memory leak in ceph_mds_auth_match() We now free the temporary target path substring allocation on every possible branch, instead of omitting the default branch. In some cases, a memory leak occured, which could rapidly crash the system (depending on how many file accesses were attempted). This was detected in production because it caused a continuous memory growth, eventually triggering kernel OOM and completely hard-locking the kernel. Relevant kmemleak stacktrace: unreferenced object 0xffff888131e69900 (size 128): comm "git", pid 66104, jiffies 4295435999 hex dump (first 32 bytes): 76 6f 6c 75 6d 65 73 2f 63 6f 6e 74 61 69 6e 65 volumes/containe 72 73 2f 67 69 74 65 61 2f 67 69 74 65 61 2f 67 rs/gitea/gitea/g backtrace (crc 2f3bb450): [<ffffffffaa68fb49>] __kmalloc_noprof+0x359/0x510 [<ffffffffc32bf1df>] ceph_mds_check_access+0x5bf/0x14e0 [ceph] [<ffffffffc3235722>] ceph_open+0x312/0xd80 [ceph] [<ffffffffaa7dd786>] do_dentry_open+0x456/0x1120 [<ffffffffaa7e3729>] vfs_open+0x79/0x360 [<ffffffffaa832875>] path_openat+0x1de5/0x4390 [<ffffffffaa834fcc>] do_filp_open+0x19c/0x3c0 [<ffffffffaa7e44a1>] do_sys_openat2+0x141/0x180 [<ffffffffaa7e4945>] __x64_sys_open+0xe5/0x1a0 [<ffffffffac2cc2f7>] do_syscall_64+0xb7/0x210 [<ffffffffac400130>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f It can be triggered by mouting a subdirectory of a CephFS filesystem, and then trying to access files on this subdirectory with an auth token using a path-scoped capability: $ ceph auth get client.services [client.services] key = REDACTED caps mds = "allow rw fsname=cephfs path=/volumes/" caps mon = "allow r fsname=cephfs" caps osd = "allow rw tag cephfs data=cephfs" $ cat /proc/self/mounts services@[REDACTED].cephfs=/volumes/containers /ceph/containers ceph rw,noatime,name=services,secret=<hidden>,ms_mode=prefer-crc,mount_timeout=300,acl,mon_addr=[REDACTED]:3300,recover_session=clean 0 0 $ seq 1 1000000 | xargs -P32 --replace={} touch /ceph/containers/file-{} && \ seq 1 1000000 | xargs -P32 --replace={} cat /ceph/containers/file-{} [ idryomov: combine if statements, rename rc to path_matched and make it a bool, formatting ]
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
Remediation
- Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 6.12.14, 6.13.3, 6.14
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
| Product | Status | Plan or fix |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | Affected | No fix yet |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
Not affected: 3 products
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2025-21737
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-755w-2h7x-xvj6
References
More Linux Kernel vulnerabilities
- TI-2025-26358 tls: fix handling of zero-length records on the rx_list KEVCVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
- TI-2026-38352 netfilter: bridge: make ebt_snat ARP rewrite writable KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8
- TI-2013-05264 The (1) get_user and (2) put_user API functions in the Linux kernel before 3.5.5 on the… KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8
- TI-2022-00125 Integer overflow in kernel KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.4
- TI-2013-01864 The perf_swevent_init function in kernel/events/core.c in the Linux kernel before 3.8.9… KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.4
- TI-2021-05514 Heap Out-Of-Bounds Write in Netfilter IP6T_SO_SET_REPLACE KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.3
Sources
- CVE-2025-21737 · CVE Program
- CVE-2025-21737 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-755w-2h7x-xvj6 · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2025-21737 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
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