CVE-2022-49546

March 10, 2025, 9:13 p.m.

5.5
Medium

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/kexec: fix memory leak of elf header buffer This is reported by kmemleak detector: unreferenced object 0xffffc900002a9000 (size 4096): comm "kexec", pid 14950, jiffies 4295110793 (age 373.951s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 7f 45 4c 46 02 01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .ELF............ 04 00 3e 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ..>............. backtrace: [<0000000016a8ef9f>] __vmalloc_node_range+0x101/0x170 [<000000002b66b6c0>] __vmalloc_node+0xb4/0x160 [<00000000ad40107d>] crash_prepare_elf64_headers+0x8e/0xcd0 [<0000000019afff23>] crash_load_segments+0x260/0x470 [<0000000019ebe95c>] bzImage64_load+0x814/0xad0 [<0000000093e16b05>] arch_kexec_kernel_image_load+0x1be/0x2a0 [<000000009ef2fc88>] kimage_file_alloc_init+0x2ec/0x5a0 [<0000000038f5a97a>] __do_sys_kexec_file_load+0x28d/0x530 [<0000000087c19992>] do_syscall_64+0x3b/0x90 [<0000000066e063a4>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae In crash_prepare_elf64_headers(), a buffer is allocated via vmalloc() to store elf headers. While it's not freed back to system correctly when kdump kernel is reloaded or unloaded. Then memory leak is caused. Fix it by introducing x86 specific function arch_kimage_file_post_load_cleanup(), and freeing the buffer there. And also remove the incorrect elf header buffer freeing code. Before calling arch specific kexec_file loading function, the image instance has been initialized. So 'image->elf_headers' must be NULL. It doesn't make sense to free the elf header buffer in the place. Three different people have reported three bugs about the memory leak on x86_64 inside Redhat.

Product(s) Impacted

Vendor Product Versions
Linux
  • Linux Kernel
  • *

Weaknesses

Common security weaknesses mapped to this vulnerability.

CWE-401
Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime
The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, which slowly consumes remaining memory.

*CPE(s)

Affected systems and software identified for this CVE.

Type Vendor Product Version Update Edition Language Software Edition Target Software Target Hardware Other Information
o linux linux_kernel / / / / / / / /
o linux linux_kernel / / / / / / / /
o linux linux_kernel / / / / / / / /

CVSS Score

5.5 / 10

CVSS Data - 3.1

  • Attack Vector: LOCAL
  • Attack Complexity: LOW
  • Privileges Required: LOW
  • Scope: UNCHANGED
  • Confidentiality Impact: NONE
  • Integrity Impact: NONE
  • Availability Impact: HIGH
  • CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

    View Vector String

Timeline

Published: Feb. 26, 2025, 7:01 a.m.
Last Modified: March 10, 2025, 9:13 p.m.

Status : Analyzed

CVE has been recently published to the CVE List and has been received by the NVD.

More info

Source

416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

*Disclaimer: Some vulnerabilities do not have an associated CPE. To enhance the data, we use AI to infer CPEs based on CVE details. This is an automated process and might not always be accurate.