CVE-2021-47238 net: ipv4: fix memory leak in ip_mc_add1_src

What is CVE-2021-47238?

CVE-2021-47238 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 21 May 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

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

net: ipv4: fix memory leak in ip_mc_add1_src

BUG: memory leak unreferenced object 0xffff888101bc4c00 (size 32): comm "syz-executor527", pid 360, jiffies 4294807421 (age 19.329s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ac 14 14 bb 00 00 02 00 ................ backtrace: [<00000000f17c5244>] kmalloc include/linux/slab.h:558 [inline] [<00000000f17c5244>] kzalloc include/linux/slab.h:688 [inline] [<00000000f17c5244>] ip_mc_add1_src net/ipv4/igmp.c:1971 [inline] [<00000000f17c5244>] ip_mc_add_src+0x95f/0xdb0 net/ipv4/igmp.c:2095 [<000000001cb99709>] ip_mc_source+0x84c/0xea0 net/ipv4/igmp.c:2416 [<0000000052cf19ed>] do_ip_setsockopt net/ipv4/ip_sockglue.c:1294 [inline] [<0000000052cf19ed>] ip_setsockopt+0x114b/0x30c0 net/ipv4/ip_sockglue.c:1423 [<00000000477edfbc>] raw_setsockopt+0x13d/0x170 net/ipv4/raw.c:857 [<00000000e75ca9bb>] __sys_setsockopt+0x158/0x270 net/socket.c:2117 [<00000000bdb993a8>] __do_sys_setsockopt net/socket.c:2128 [inline] [<00000000bdb993a8>] __se_sys_setsockopt net/socket.c:2125 [inline] [<00000000bdb993a8>] __x64_sys_setsockopt+0xba/0x150 net/socket.c:2125 [<000000006a1ffdbd>] do_syscall_64+0x40/0x80 arch/x86/entry/common.c:47 [<00000000b11467c4>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae

In commit 24803f38a5c0 ("igmp: do not remove igmp souce list info when set link down"), the ip_mc_clear_src() in ip_mc_destroy_dev() was removed, because it was also called in igmpv3_clear_delrec().

Rough callgraph:

inetdev_destroy -> ip_mc_destroy_dev -> igmpv3_clear_delrec -> ip_mc_clear_src -> RCU_INIT_POINTER(dev->ip_ptr, NULL)

However, ip_mc_clear_src() called in igmpv3_clear_delrec() doesn't release in_dev->mc_list->sources. And RCU_INIT_POINTER() assigns the NULL to dev->ip_ptr. As a result, in_dev cannot be obtained through inetdev_by_index() and then in_dev->mc_list->sources cannot be released by ip_mc_del1_src() in the sock_close. Rough call sequence goes like:

sock_close -> __sock_release -> inet_release -> ip_mc_drop_socket -> inetdev_by_index -> ip_mc_leave_src -> ip_mc_del_src -> ip_mc_del1_src

So we still need to call ip_mc_clear_src() in ip_mc_destroy_dev() to free in_dev->mc_list->sources.

Weakness: CWE-400

Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-47238?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2021-47238?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2021-47238 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-47238 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47238, GHSA-jv5x-8v9f-frx2, UBUNTU-CVE-2021-47238.