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Fencer Vulns
medium 4.6

CVE-2009-3286 json

NFSv4 in the Linux kernel 2.6.18, and possibly other versions, does not properly clean up an inode when an O_EXCL create fails, which cause…

published 2009-09-22 17 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2009-3269

cvss
4.6
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 40%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

NFSv4 in the Linux kernel 2.6.18, and possibly other versions, does not properly clean up an inode when an O_EXCL create fails, which causes files to be created with insecure settings such as setuid bits, and possibly allows local users to gain privileges, related to the execution of the do_open_permission function even when a create fails.

Patch / fix

  • kernel RHEL 5 2.6.18-164.6.1.el5
  • kernel-PAE RHEL 5 2.6.18-164.6.1.el5
  • kernel-xen RHEL 5 2.6.18-164.6.1.el5
  • kernel-kdump RHEL 5 2.6.18-164.6.1.el5
  • kernel-debuginfo-common RHEL 5 2.6.18-164.6.1.el5

red hat advisories RHSA-2009:1548

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-2009-3286 updated cvss 4.6

kernel: O_EXCL creates on NFSv4 are broken

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server) kernel 2.6.18-164.6.1.el5, kernel-PAE 2.6.18-164.6.1.el5, kernel-xen 2.6.18-164.6.1.el5, kernel-kdump 2.6.18-164.6.1.el5, kernel-debuginfo-common 2.6.18-164.6.1.el5 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client) kernel 2.6.18-164.6.1.el5, kernel-PAE 2.6.18-164.6.1.el5, kernel-xen 2.6.18-164.6.1.el5, kernel-kdump 2.6.18-164.6.1.el5, kernel-debuginfo-common 2.6.18-164.6.1.el5
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:1548

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

0.47% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 40% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 4.6 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-264 Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls
Technology feeds

References

Sources

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.