GHSA-rh54-vrwc-232gHighCVSS 7.5

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nfsd: cap decoded POSIX ACL...

Published
September 11, 2026
Last Modified
September 13, 2026

🔗 CVE IDs covered (1)

📋 Description

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

nfsd: cap decoded POSIX ACL count to bound sort cost

nfsd4_decode_posixacl() reads a u32 entry count off the wire and passes it straight to posix_acl_alloc() and sort_pacl_range(). The latter is an O(n^2) bubble sort, so a client-chosen count drives unbounded CPU in the server's compound processing path.

nfsd4_decode_posixacl()
  xdr_stream_decode_u32(&count)       /* uncapped u32 */
  posix_acl_alloc(count, GFP_KERNEL)
  sort_pacl_range(*acl, 0, count - 1) /* O(n^2) bubble sort */

The encoder side in the same file already rejects ACLs whose a_count exceeds NFS_ACL_MAX_ENTRIES, but the decoder introduced in commit 5fc51dfc2eb1 ("NFSD: Add support for XDR decoding POSIX draft ACLs") omitted the symmetric check.

Fix by rejecting a wire count greater than NFS_ACL_MAX_ENTRIES with nfserr_inval, before any allocation, so the sort is bounded by NFS_ACL_MAX_ENTRIES^2 comparisons.

While we're in here, also fix the nfserr_resource return if posix_acl_alloc() fails. That's not a legal error code for v4.1+. Change it to return nfserr_jukebox as that's more appropriate for memory allocation failures.

🔗 References (4)