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From: Guangshuo Li <lgs201920130244@gmail.com>
To: "William Breathitt Gray" <wbg@kernel.org>,
	"Greg Kroah-Hartman" <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>,
	"Uwe Kleine-König" <u.kleine-koenig@pengutronix.de>,
	linux-iio@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Cc: Guangshuo Li <lgs201920130244@gmail.com>, stable@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH v2] counter: Fix refcount leak in counter_alloc() error path
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2026 21:46:04 +0800	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260413134604.2861772-1-lgs201920130244@gmail.com> (raw)

After device_initialize(), the lifetime of the embedded struct device
is expected to be managed through the device core reference counting.

In counter_alloc(), if dev_set_name() fails after device_initialize(),
the error path removes the chrdev, frees the ID, and frees the backing
allocation directly instead of releasing the device reference with
put_device(). This bypasses the normal device lifetime rules and 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() in the dev_set_name() failure path and
let counter_device_release() handle the final cleanup.

Fixes: 4da08477ea1f ("counter: Set counter device name")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Guangshuo Li <lgs201920130244@gmail.com>
---
 drivers/counter/counter-core.c | 3 ++-
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/counter/counter-core.c b/drivers/counter/counter-core.c
index 50bd30ba3d03..0b1dac61b7b5 100644
--- a/drivers/counter/counter-core.c
+++ b/drivers/counter/counter-core.c
@@ -124,7 +124,8 @@ struct counter_device *counter_alloc(size_t sizeof_priv)
 
 err_dev_set_name:
 
-	counter_chrdev_remove(counter);
+	put_device(dev);
+	return NULL;
 err_chrdev_add:
 
 	ida_free(&counter_ida, dev->id);
-- 
2.43.0


             reply	other threads:[~2026-04-13 13:46 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 2+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-04-13 13:46 Guangshuo Li [this message]
2026-05-03  4:55 ` [PATCH v2] counter: Fix refcount leak in counter_alloc() error path William Breathitt Gray

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