Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime
CVE-2024-41023
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sched/deadline: Fix task_struct reference leak During the execution of the following stress test with linux-rt: stress-ng --cyclic 30 --timeout 30 --minimize --quiet kmemleak frequently reported a memory leak concerning the task_struct: unreferenced object 0xffff8881305b8000 (size 16136): comm "stress-ng", pid 614, jiffies 4294883961 (age 286.412s) object hex dump (first 32 bytes): 02 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .@.............. 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ debug hex dump (first 16 bytes): 53 09 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 S............... backtrace: [<00000000046b6790>] dup_task_struct+0x30/0x540 [<00000000c5ca0f0b>] copy_process+0x3d9/0x50e0 [<00000000ced59777>] kernel_clone+0xb0/0x770 [<00000000a50befdc>] __do_sys_clone+0xb6/0xf0 [<000000001dbf2008>] do_syscall_64+0x5d/0xf0 [<00000000552900ff>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x6e/0x76 The issue occurs in start_dl_timer(), which increments the task_struct reference count and sets a timer. The timer callback, dl_task_timer, is supposed to decrement the reference count upon expiration. However, if enqueue_task_dl() is called before the timer expires and cancels it, the reference count is not decremented, leading to the leak. This patch fixes the reference leak by ensuring the task_struct reference count is properly decremented when the timer is canceled.
- LOW
- LOCAL
- NONE
- UNCHANGED
- NONE
- LOW
- NONE
- HIGH
CWE-401 - Missing release of memory after effective lifetime (memory leak)
'Missing release of memory after effective lifetime (memory leak)' is a weakness that occurs when software doesn't effectively release allocated memory after it is used. If not addressed, this enables attackers to launch denial of service attacks (by crashing or hanging the program) or take advantage of other unexpected behavior resulting from low memory conditions.
References
Advisory Timeline
- Published