CVE-2022-49801 tracing: Fix memory leak in tracing_read_pipe()
A memory leak in the Linux kernel's tracing subsystem allows attackers to exhaust system memory, leading to denial of service.
- 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
What is CVE-2022-49801?
CVE-2022-49801 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 May 2025. 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:
tracing: Fix memory leak in tracing_read_pipe()
kmemleak reports this issue:
unreferenced object 0xffff888105a18900 (size 128): comm "test_progs", pid 18933, jiffies 4336275356 (age 22801.766s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 25 73 00 90 81 88 ff ff 26 05 00 00 42 01 58 04 %s......&...B.X. 03 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace: [<00000000560143a1>] __kmalloc_node_track_caller+0x4a/0x140 [<000000006af00822>] krealloc+0x8d/0xf0 [<00000000c309be6a>] trace_iter_expand_format+0x99/0x150 [<000000005a53bdb6>] trace_check_vprintf+0x1e0/0x11d0 [<0000000065629d9d>] trace_event_printf+0xb6/0xf0 [<000000009a690dc7>] trace_raw_output_bpf_trace_printk+0x89/0xc0 [<00000000d22db172>] print_trace_line+0x73c/0x1480 [<00000000cdba76ba>] tracing_read_pipe+0x45c/0x9f0 [<0000000015b58459>] vfs_read+0x17b/0x7c0 [<000000004aeee8ed>] ksys_read+0xed/0x1c0 [<0000000063d3d898>] do_syscall_64+0x3b/0x90 [<00000000a06dda7f>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd
iter->fmt alloced in tracing_read_pipe() -> .. ->trace_iter_expand_format(), but not freed, to fix, add free in tracing_release_pipe()
Weakness: CWE-401
Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49801?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2022-49801?
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-2022-49801 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49801 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49801, GHSA-q725-94pj-f5xx, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2022-49801, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49801.