From: Guangshuo Li <lgs201920130244@gmail.com>
To: Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@kernel.org>,
Russ Weight <russ.weight@linux.dev>,
Danilo Krummrich <dakr@kernel.org>,
Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>,
"Rafael J. Wysocki" <rafael@kernel.org>,
Tianfei zhang <tianfei.zhang@intel.com>,
driver-core@lists.linux.dev, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Cc: Guangshuo Li <lgs201920130244@gmail.com>, stable@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH v2] firmware_loader: fix device reference leak in firmware_upload_register()
Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2026 15:02:20 +0800 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260418070220.64542-1-lgs201920130244@gmail.com> (raw)
firmware_upload_register()
-> fw_create_instance()
-> device_initialize()
After fw_create_instance() succeeds, the lifetime of the embedded struct
device is expected to be managed through the device core reference
counting, since fw_create_instance() has already called
device_initialize().
In firmware_upload_register(), if alloc_lookup_fw_priv() fails after
fw_create_instance() succeeds, the code reaches free_fw_sysfs and frees
fw_sysfs directly instead of releasing the device reference with
put_device(). This may leave the reference count of the embedded struct
device unbalanced, resulting in a refcount leak.
The issue was identified by a static analysis tool I developed and
confirmed by manual review. Fix this by using put_device(fw_dev) in the
failure path and letting fw_dev_release() handle the final cleanup,
instead of freeing the instance directly from the error path.
Fixes: 97730bbb242c ("firmware_loader: Add firmware-upload support")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Guangshuo Li <lgs201920130244@gmail.com>
---
drivers/base/firmware_loader/sysfs_upload.c | 6 ++----
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
diff --git a/drivers/base/firmware_loader/sysfs_upload.c b/drivers/base/firmware_loader/sysfs_upload.c
index f59a7856934c..a6dab34b22d8 100644
--- a/drivers/base/firmware_loader/sysfs_upload.c
+++ b/drivers/base/firmware_loader/sysfs_upload.c
@@ -351,7 +351,8 @@ firmware_upload_register(struct module *module, struct device *parent,
if (ret != 0) {
if (ret > 0)
ret = -EINVAL;
- goto free_fw_sysfs;
+ put_device(fw_dev);
+ goto exit_module_put;
}
fw_priv->is_paged_buf = true;
fw_sysfs->fw_priv = fw_priv;
@@ -365,9 +366,6 @@ firmware_upload_register(struct module *module, struct device *parent,
return fw_upload;
-free_fw_sysfs:
- kfree(fw_sysfs);
-
free_fw_upload_priv:
kfree(fw_upload_priv);
--
2.43.0
next reply other threads:[~2026-04-18 7:02 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-04-18 7:02 Guangshuo Li [this message]
2026-05-04 15:16 ` [PATCH v2] firmware_loader: fix device reference leak in firmware_upload_register() Russ Weight
2026-05-04 19:18 ` Danilo Krummrich
2026-05-05 8:48 ` Guangshuo Li
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=20260418070220.64542-1-lgs201920130244@gmail.com \
--to=lgs201920130244@gmail.com \
--cc=dakr@kernel.org \
--cc=driver-core@lists.linux.dev \
--cc=gregkh@linuxfoundation.org \
--cc=linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org \
--cc=mcgrof@kernel.org \
--cc=rafael@kernel.org \
--cc=russ.weight@linux.dev \
--cc=stable@vger.kernel.org \
--cc=tianfei.zhang@intel.com \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox