# CVE-2021-47365: afs: Fix page leak

> A page reference leak in the Linux kernel AFS filesystem can cause significant memory exhaustion, leading to denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 21 May 2024
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47365, GHSA-95jq-x6q9-c9cq, UBUNTU-CVE-2021-47365

## What is CVE-2021-47365?

CVE-2021-47365 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:

afs: Fix page leak

There's a loop in afs_extend_writeback() that adds extra pages to a write
we want to make to improve the efficiency of the writeback by making it
larger.  This loop stops, however, if we hit a page we can't write back
from immediately, but it doesn't get rid of the page ref we speculatively
acquired.

This was caused by the removal of the cleanup loop when the code switched
from using find_get_pages_contig() to xarray scanning as the latter only
gets a single page at a time, not a batch.

Fix this by putting the page on a ref on an early break from the loop.
Unfortunately, we can't just add that page to the pagevec we're employing
as we'll go through that and add those pages to the RPC call.

This was found by the generic/074 test.  It leaks ~4GiB of RAM each time it
is run - which can be observed with "top".

Weakness: CWE-459 (Incomplete Cleanup)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-47365?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2021-47365?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2021-47365 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-47365 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2021-47365 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2021-47365 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.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-47365 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-47365/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-47365/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-47365
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-47365
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2021-47365

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-47365/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.