CVE-2026-31706 — linux / linux_kernel
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ksmbd: validate num_aces and harden ACE walk in smb_inherit_dacl()
smb_inherit_dacl() trusts the on-disk num_aces value from the parent directory's DACL xattr and uses it to size a heap allocation:
aces_base = kmalloc(sizeof(struct smb_ace) * num_aces * 2, ...);
num_aces is a u16 read from le16_to_cpu(parent_pdacl->num_aces) without checking that it is consistent with the declared pdacl_size. An authenticated client whose parent directory's security.NTACL is tampered (e.g. via offline xattr corruption or a concurrent path that bypasses parse_dacl()) can present num_aces = 65535 with minimal actual ACE data. This causes a ~8 MB allocation (not kzalloc, so uninitialized) that the subsequent loop only partially populates, and may also overflow the three-way size_t multiply on 32-bit kernels.
Additionally, the ACE walk loop uses the weaker offsetof(struct smb_ace, access_req) minimum size check rather than the minimum valid on-wire ACE size, and does not reject ACEs whose declared size is below the minimum.
Reproduced on UML + KASAN + LOCKDEP against the real ksmbd code path. A legitimate mount.cifs client creates a parent directory over SMB (ksmbd writes a valid security.NTACL xattr), then the NTACL blob on the backing filesystem is rewritten to set num_aces = 0xFFFF while keeping the posix_acl_hash bytes intact so ksmbd_vfs_get_sd_xattr()'s hash check still passes. A subsequent SMB2 CREATE of a child under that parent drives smb2_open() into smb_inherit_dacl() (share has "vfs objects = acl_xattr" set), which fails the page allocator:
WARNING: mm/page_alloc.c:5226 at __alloc_frozen_pages_noprof+0x46c/0x9c0 Workqueue: ksmbd-io handle_ksmbd_work __alloc_frozen_pages_noprof+0x46c/0x9c0 ___kmalloc_large_node+0x68/0x130 __kmalloc_large_node_noprof+0x24/0x70 __kmalloc_noprof+0x4c9/0x690 smb_inherit_dacl+0x394/0x2430 smb2_open+0x595d/0xabe0 handle_ksmbd_work+0x3d3/0x1140
With the patch applied the added guard rejects the tampered value with -EINVAL before any large allocation runs, smb2_open() falls back to smb2_create_sd_buffer(), and the child is created with a default SD. No warning, no splat.
Fix by:
-
Validating num_aces against pdacl_size using the same formula applied in parse_dacl().
-
Replacing the raw kmalloc(sizeof * num_aces * 2) with kmalloc_array(num_aces * 2, sizeof(...)) for overflow-safe allocation.
-
Tightening the per-ACE loop guard to require the minimum valid ACE size (offsetof(smb_ace, sid) + CIFS_SID_BASE_SIZE) and rejecting under-sized ACEs, matching the hardening in smb_check_perm_dacl() and parse_dacl().
v1 -> v2:
- Replace the synthetic test-module splat in the changelog with a real-path UML + KASAN reproduction driven through mount.cifs and SMB2 CREATE; Namjae flagged the kcifs3_test_inherit_dacl_old name in v1 since it does not exist in ksmbd.
- Drop the commit-hash citation from the code comment per Namjae's review; keep the parse_dacl() pointer.
| Software | From | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| linux / linux_kernel | 5.15 | 6.12.84 |
| linux / linux_kernel | 6.13 | 6.18.25 |
| linux / linux_kernel | 6.19 | 7.0.2 |
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