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CVE-2026-72469
xprtrdma: Fix ep kref imbalance on ADDR_CHANGE
Published 2026-08-15 (2 months ago) by the Linux kernel CNA. Subsystem net/sunrpc. Debian urgency: not yet assigned.
What to do, per Debian release
Debian's own status for CVE-2026-72469 in every release this site tracks, and what each one means in practice. Every status below is the one the Debian Security Team publishes for this CVE. source
| Release | Status | Version | What this means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 12bookworm | vulnerable | 6.1.190-1 | No fix published anywhere yet, neither in Debian nor upstream for the series bookworm tracks. Watch the Debian tracker page for this CVE. Advisories for bookworm have historically landed a median of 23 days after publication. |
| Debian 13trixie | fixed | 6.12.100-1 | Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 6.12.100-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts. |
| Debian 14forky | fixed | 7.1.5-1 | Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 7.1.5-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts. |
| Debian unstablesid | fixed | 7.1.5-1 | Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 7.1.5-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts. |
The vulnerability
What the bug is
rpcrdma_cm_event_handler() falls through to the disconnected: label on RDMA_CM_EVENT_ADDR_CHANGE and calls rpcrdma_ep_put() with no matching get when the event arrives before RDMA_CM_EVENT_ESTABLISHED. The kref then underflows during connect teardown and rpcrdma_xprt_disconnect() operates on a freed ep. Reference counts across a normal connection lifecycle: rpcrdma_ep_create() kref_init ->1 rpcrdma_xprt_connect() ep_get ->2 (before post_recvs) RDMA_CM_EVENT_ESTABLISHED ep_get ->3 RDMA_CM_EVENT_DISCONNECTED ep_put ->2 rpcrdma_xprt_drain() ep_put ->1 rpcrdma_xprt_disconnect() tail ep_put ->0 (ep_destroy) The connect-time get in rpcrdma_xprt_connect(), taken just before rpcrdma_post_recvs() "while there are outstanding Receives," is balanced by rpcrdma_xprt_drain. ADDR_CHANGE before ESTABLISHED has no get to consume, so its put drops the count to 1 and the drain put then frees the ep while rpcrdma_xprt_disconnect() still holds a pointer to it. Fix by dispatching on the prior re_connect_status via xchg(): for prev == 0 (pre-ESTABLISHED) wake the connect waiter and return with no put; for prev == 1 call rpcrdma_force_disconnect() and return. The case-1 arm relies on the subsequent RDMA_CM_EVENT_DISCONNECTED event -- reliably delivered when rdma_disconnect() is called on a still-connected cm_id -- to balance the ESTABLISHED get; rpcrdma_xprt_drain() continues to balance only that connect-time get. Any other prior value means teardown is already in flight.
Where it lives
The fix touches these files. If the subsystem is one you do not use, the practical exposure is lower, though the package is still the vulnerable one.
net/sunrpc/xprtrdma/verbs.c
- What this is
- KERNEL NFSD, SUNRPC, AND LOCKD SERVERSMAINTAINERS section matched on net/sunrpc/ · linux-nfs@vger.kernel.org · Supported
- Kernel module
- rpcrdma
Check it on the machine
grep -wE 'CONFIG_SUNRPC|CONFIG_SUNRPC_XPRT_RDMA' /boot/config-$(uname -r)Reads the booted kernel's own configuration, on the machine and nowhere else. =y is built in, =m is a module, and an is not set line means the code is not there.
lsmod | grep -w rpcrdmaPrints a line if that module is loaded right now, and nothing if it is not. One that is not loaded can still be loaded later by anything that needs it.
Show whether Debian builds this, per release
Debian builds this as a loadable module. Every release below compiles it as a module on every flavour, so whether the code is in the running kernel depends on whether that module is loaded.
- bookworm, trixie, forky, sidm
- m
- a loadable module on every flavour - check lsmod, can be blacklisted
- Build switches
- CONFIG_SUNRPC, CONFIG_SUNRPC_XPRT_RDMA
- Reads as
- all on means the file is compiled; any one off means it is not.
From the configuration Debian publishes for every kernel flavour it builds. It covers only the architectures Debian ships a linux-config package for, and nothing about a kernel you built yourself. Debian's own status above stays authoritative about the source package.MAINTAINERS kbuild Makefiles Debian linux-config packages
Signals
- Published
- 2026-08-15 (2 months ago)source
- CVSS
- 8.8 high
CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:Hsource recompute it - Attack vector
- adjacent network (AV:A)source
- EPSS
- 0.38%, higher than 30.3% of all CVEssource
- CISA KEV
- not listedthe KEV catalogue
- Debian urgency
- not yet assignedsource
- Subsystem
- net/sunrpc
Upstream fixes
The versions the CNA records as introducing and fixing this, and the commit for each. source
| Introduced | Fixed in | Commit |
|---|---|---|
| 5.8 | 6.12.97 | cfd1bab66b04 |
| 5.8 | 6.18.40 | d0479c2b1297 |
| 5.8 | 7.1.5 | ffc077905397 |
| 5.8 | 7.2 | af9b65b29af3 |
| 5.7.9 | 0 | 0 |
Why the CNA scored it this way
Quoted from the kernel CNA's own scoring file, word for word. A highlighted metric carries the most severe value CVSS v3.1 defines for it, which is what pushes the score up. source
- AV:AAttack vector, adjacent network
- The bug is in the NFS/RPC-over-RDMA client reached during RDMA CM connect/reconnect to a remote server; ADDR_CHANGE is delivered on bonded RoCE/IB netdev failover on the storage network segment, a plausible adjacent-network trigger in HPC and cloud NFS-over-RDMA deployments.
- AC:LAttack complexity, low
- Once NFS-over-RDMA is in use, an attacker can reliably drive repeated reconnect attempts and time or induce bonding failover so ADDR_CHANGE arrives pre-ESTABLISHED; the resulting kref underflow and UAF are deterministic, not a probabilistic memory-layout race.
- PR:NPrivileges required, none
- Exploitation requires no privileges on the victim host—only that NFS-over-RDMA is configured and reconnects occur—while an adjacent attacker or malicious storage peer can provoke link failover and connection churn without authenticating to the victim system.
- UI:NUser interaction, none
- No victim user interaction is required beyond normal automated NFS-over-RDMA client reconnect activity already performed by the kernel when links fail or sessions drop.
- S:UScope, unchanged
- Impact is kernel memory corruption and potential local privilege escalation within the same kernel security domain, not a cross-boundary escape such as VM guest-to-host or IOMMU bypass.
- C:HConfidentiality impact, high
- Premature free of rpcrdma_ep leaves dangling pointers used in rpcrdma_xprt_disconnect (rdma_disconnect, ib_drain_rq/sq), a classic kernel heap UAF that can be leveraged for arbitrary memory disclosure via controlled reuse of the freed endpoint object.
- I:HIntegrity impact, high
- Teardown continues to operate on the freed endpoint and associated RDMA/IB state, enabling heap corruption and potential arbitrary kernel write or control-flow hijack, not merely a benign NULL dereference crash.
- A:HAvailability impact, high
- The kref imbalance causes premature endpoint destruction during disconnect teardown, which can trigger kernel oops/panic from use-after-free even when exploitation for code execution is not attempted.