[PATCH v1 1/2] nfsd: Fix cred ref leak in nfsd_nl_threads_set_doit().

Kuniyuki Iwashima
2026-01-24T04:19:07Z

syzbot reported memory leak of struct cred. [0]

nfsd_nl_threads_set_doit() passes get_current_cred() to
nfsd_svc(), but put_cred() is not called after that.

The cred is finally passed down to _svc_xprt_create(),
which calls get_cred() with the cred for struct svc_xprt.

The ownership of the refcount by get_current_cred() is not
transferred to anywhere and is just leaked.

nfsd_svc() is also called from write_threads(), but it does
not bump file->f_cred there.

nfsd_nl_threads_set_doit() is called from sendmsg() and
current->cred does not go away.

Let's use current_cred() in nfsd_nl_threads_set_doit().

[0]:
BUG: memory leak
unreferenced object 0xffff888108b89480 (size 184):
comm "syz-executor", pid 5994, jiffies 4294943386
hex dump (first 32 bytes):
01 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 00 ................
backtrace (crc 369454a7):
kmemleak_alloc_recursive include/linux/kmemleak.h:44 [inline]
slab_post_alloc_hook mm/slub.c:4958 [inline]
slab_alloc_node mm/slub.c:5263 [inline]
kmem_cache_alloc_noprof+0x412/0x580 mm/slub.c:5270
prepare_creds+0x22/0x600 kernel/cred.c:185
copy_creds+0x44/0x290 kernel/cred.c:286
copy_process+0x7a7/0x2870 kernel/fork.c:2086
kernel_clone+0xac/0x6e0 kernel/fork.c:2651
__do_sys_clone+0x7f/0xb0 kernel/fork.c:2792
do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:63 [inline]
do_syscall_64+0xa4/0xf80 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:94
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f

Fixes: 924f4fb003ba ("NFSD: convert write_threads to netlink command")
Reported-by: syzbot+dd3b43aa0204089217ee@syzkaller.appspotmail.com
Tested-by: syzbot+dd3b43aa0204089217ee@syzkaller.appspotmail.com
Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/all/69744674.a00a0220.33ccc7.0000.GAE@google.com/
Signed-off-by: Kuniyuki Iwashima <kuniyu@google.com>
---
fs/nfsd/nfsctl.c | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/fs/nfsd/nfsctl.c b/fs/nfsd/nfsctl.c
index 084fc517e9e1..ec9782fd4a36 100644
--- a/fs/nfsd/nfsctl.c
+++ b/fs/nfsd/nfsctl.c
@@ -1642,7 +1642,7 @@ int nfsd_nl_threads_set_doit(struct sk_buff *skb, struct genl_info *info)
scope = nla_data(attr);
}

- ret = nfsd_svc(nrpools, nthreads, net, get_current_cred(), scope);
+ ret = nfsd_svc(nrpools, nthreads, net, current_cred(), scope);
if (ret > 0)
ret = 0;
out_unlock:
--
2.52.0.457.g6b5491de43-goog