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Fencer Vulns
no cvss —

CVE-2022-50751 json

configfs: fix possible memory leak in configfs_create_dir()

published 2025-12-24 10 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2022-55810

cvss
—
not scored
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 16%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

configfs: fix possible memory leak in configfs_create_dir()

kmemleak reported memory leaks in configfs_create_dir():

unreferenced object 0xffff888009f6af00 (size 192): comm "modprobe", pid 3777, jiffies 4295537735 (age 233.784s) backtrace: kmem_cache_alloc (mm/slub.c:3250 mm/slub.c:3256 mm/slub.c:3263 mm/slub.c:3273) new_fragment (./include/linux/slab.h:600 fs/configfs/dir.c:163) configfs_register_subsystem (fs/configfs/dir.c:1857) basic_write (drivers/hwtracing/stm/p_basic.c:14) stm_p_basic do_one_initcall (init/main.c:1296) do_init_module (kernel/module/main.c:2455) ...

unreferenced object 0xffff888003ba7180 (size 96): comm "modprobe", pid 3777, jiffies 4295537735 (age 233.784s) backtrace: kmem_cache_alloc (mm/slub.c:3250 mm/slub.c:3256 mm/slub.c:3263 mm/slub.c:3273) configfs_new_dirent (./include/linux/slab.h:723 fs/configfs/dir.c:194) configfs_make_dirent (fs/configfs/dir.c:248) configfs_create_dir (fs/configfs/dir.c:296) configfs_attach_group.isra.28 (fs/configfs/dir.c:816 fs/configfs/dir.c:852) configfs_register_subsystem (fs/configfs/dir.c:1881) basic_write (drivers/hwtracing/stm/p_basic.c:14) stm_p_basic do_one_initcall (init/main.c:1296) do_init_module (kernel/module/main.c:2455) ...

This is because the refcount is not correct in configfs_make_dirent(). For normal stage, the refcount is changing as:

configfs_register_subsystem() configfs_create_dir() configfs_make_dirent() configfs_new_dirent() # set s_count = 1 dentry->d_fsdata = configfs_get(sd); # s_count = 2 ... configfs_unregister_subsystem() configfs_remove_dir() remove_dir() configfs_remove_dirent() # s_count = 1 dput() ... *dentry_unlink_inode()* configfs_d_iput() # s_count = 0, release

However, if we failed in configfs_create():

configfs_register_subsystem() configfs_create_dir() configfs_make_dirent() # s_count = 2 ... configfs_create() # fail ->out_remove: configfs_remove_dirent(dentry) configfs_put(sd) # s_count = 1 return PTR_ERR(inode);

There is no inode in the error path, so the configfs_d_iput() is lost and makes sd and fragment memory leaked.

To fix this, when we failed in configfs_create(), manually call configfs_put(sd) to keep the refcount correct.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.4.229, 5.10.163, 5.15.86, 6.0.16, 6.1.2, 6.2
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 6.1.4-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50751

  • linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-144.161
  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-69.76
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1097.105
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1033.37
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1101.110
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1031.38
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1030.35
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1045.50

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50751

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-64kb SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.4 +5 more 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.4 +3 more 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1.150400.24.98.3
  • kernel-rt SLE Micro 5.4, SLE Micro 5.3 5.14.21-150400.15.142.1
  • kernel-source-rt SLE Micro 5.4, SLE Micro 5.3 5.14.21-150400.15.142.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:0617-1SUSE-SU-2026:0473-1SUSE-SU-2026:0411-1SUSE-SU-2026:0317-1SUSE-SU-2026:0263-1

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-2022-50751 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: Linux kernel (configfs): Denial of Service due to memory leak via incorrect reference counting

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    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

Exploit prediction

0.25% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 16% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

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