RDMA/rxe: Clear all QP fields if creation failed

published 2024-03-01 2 y ago modified 2026-08-05 3 mo ago also EUVD-2021-33726

cvss: 7.8; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.3%; EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 20%
public exploits: 0; none known

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

rxe_qp_do_cleanup() relies on valid pointer values in QP for the properly created ones, but in case rxe_qp_from_init() failed it was filled with garbage and caused tot the following error.

refcount_t: underflow; use-after-free. WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 12560 at lib/refcount.c:28 refcount_warn_saturate+0x1d1/0x1e0 lib/refcount.c:28 Modules linked in: CPU: 1 PID: 12560 Comm: syz-executor.4 Not tainted 5.12.0-syzkaller #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 01/01/2011 RIP: 0010:refcount_warn_saturate+0x1d1/0x1e0 lib/refcount.c:28 Code: e9 db fe ff ff 48 89 df e8 2c c2 ea fd e9 8a fe ff ff e8 72 6a a7 fd 48 c7 c7 e0 b2 c1 89 c6 05 dc 3a e6 09 01 e8 ee 74 fb 04 <0f> 0b e9 af fe ff ff 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 41 56 41 55 41 54 55 RSP: 0018:ffffc900097ceba8 EFLAGS: 00010286 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 0000000000000000 RDX: 0000000000040000 RSI: ffffffff815bb075 RDI: fffff520012f9d67 RBP: 0000000000000003 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: ffffffff815b4eae R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffff8880322a4800 R13: ffff8880322a4940 R14: ffff888033044e00 R15: 0000000000000000 FS: 00007f6eb2be3700(0000) GS:ffff8880b9d00000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00007fdbe5d41000 CR3: 000000001d181000 CR4: 00000000001506e0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 Call Trace: __refcount_sub_and_test include/linux/refcount.h:283 [inline] __refcount_dec_and_test include/linux/refcount.h:315 [inline] refcount_dec_and_test include/linux/refcount.h:333 [inline] kref_put include/linux/kref.h:64 [inline] rxe_qp_do_cleanup+0x96f/0xaf0 drivers/infiniband/sw/rxe/rxe_qp.c:805 execute_in_process_context+0x37/0x150 kernel/workqueue.c:3327 rxe_elem_release+0x9f/0x180 drivers/infiniband/sw/rxe/rxe_pool.c:391 kref_put include/linux/kref.h:65 [inline] rxe_create_qp+0x2cd/0x310 drivers/infiniband/sw/rxe/rxe_verbs.c:425 _ib_create_qp drivers/infiniband/core/core_priv.h:331 [inline] ib_create_named_qp+0x2ad/0x1370 drivers/infiniband/core/verbs.c:1231 ib_create_qp include/rdma/ib_verbs.h:3644 [inline] create_mad_qp+0x177/0x2d0 drivers/infiniband/core/mad.c:2920 ib_mad_port_open drivers/infiniband/core/mad.c:3001 [inline] ib_mad_init_device+0xd6f/0x1400 drivers/infiniband/core/mad.c:3092 add_client_context+0x405/0x5e0 drivers/infiniband/core/device.c:717 enable_device_and_get+0x1cd/0x3b0 drivers/infiniband/core/device.c:1331 ib_register_device drivers/infiniband/core/device.c:1413 [inline] ib_register_device+0x7c7/0xa50 drivers/infiniband/core/device.c:1365 rxe_register_device+0x3d5/0x4a0 drivers/infiniband/sw/rxe/rxe_verbs.c:1147 rxe_add+0x12fe/0x16d0 drivers/infiniband/sw/rxe/rxe.c:247 rxe_net_add+0x8c/0xe0 drivers/infiniband/sw/rxe/rxe_net.c:503 rxe_newlink drivers/infiniband/sw/rxe/rxe.c:269 [inline] rxe_newlink+0xb7/0xe0 drivers/infiniband/sw/rxe/rxe.c:250 nldev_newlink+0x30e/0x550 drivers/infiniband/core/nldev.c:1555 rdma_nl_rcv_msg+0x36d/0x690 drivers/infiniband/core/netlink.c:195 rdma_nl_rcv_skb drivers/infiniband/core/netlink.c:239 [inline] rdma_nl_rcv+0x2ee/0x430 drivers/infiniband/core/netlink.c:259 netlink_unicast_kernel net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1312 [inline] netlink_unicast+0x533/0x7d0 net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1338 netlink_sendmsg+0x856/0xd90 net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1927 sock_sendmsg_nosec net/socket.c:654 [inline] sock_sendmsg+0xcf/0x120 net/socket.c:674 ____sys_sendmsg+0x6e8/0x810 net/socket.c:2350 ___sys_sendmsg+0xf3/0x170 net/socket.c:2404 __sys_sendmsg+0xe5/0x1b0 net/socket.c:2433 do_syscall_64+0x3a/0xb0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:47 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0 ---truncated---

Patch / fix

fixed in 1 distros 3 links 7

Linux Linux 4.9.270, 4.14.234, 4.19.192, 5.4.122, 5.10.40, 5.12.7, 5.13

debian ubuntu suse

linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.10.40-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47078

linux Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-151.157
linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-80.90
linux-aws Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-1109.116
linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1054.57
linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1049.53
linux-kvm Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-1097.99
linux-kvm Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1044.46
linux-azure Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1055.57

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2021-47078

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

kernel-rt SLE Real Time 12 SP5 4.12.14-10.171.1
kernel-syms-rt SLE Real Time 12 SP5 4.12.14-10.171.1
kernel-rt_debug SLE Real Time 12 SP5 4.12.14-10.171.1
kernel-source-rt SLE Real Time 12 SP5 4.12.14-10.171.1
kernel-azure SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5 4.12.14-16.173.1
kernel-syms-azure SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5 4.12.14-16.173.1
kernel-source-azure SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5 4.12.14-16.173.1
kernel-default SLES for SAP 15 SP2, SLES 15 SP2-LTSS, SLE Live Patching 15 SP2 +2 more 5.3.18-150200.24.183.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2024:0976-1 SUSE-SU-2024:0975-1 SUSE-SU-2024:0926-1 SUSE-SU-2024:0925-1 SUSE-SU-2024:0857-1 SUSE-SU-2024:0856-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2021-47078 updated 2026-11-05 cvss 4.4

kernel: RDMA/rxe: Clear all QP fields if creation failed

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more
affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more
affected: no fix available
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: none
Automatable: no
Technical impact: partial
Assessed: 2 y ago (2024-03-06)

Exploit prediction

0.28% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 20% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	3.1	7.8	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CISA ADP	3.1	5.3	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L
CNA	3.1	5.3	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L

Affected products

Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness

CWE-416 Use After Free

Technology feeds

Linux kernel rss critical rss

References

Sources

CVE List CVE-2021-47078
NVD CVE-2021-47078

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary