CVE-2022-49871 net: tun: Fix memory leaks of napi_get_frags
A memory leak in the Linux kernel's TUN driver 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-2022-49871?
CVE-2022-49871 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:
net: tun: Fix memory leaks of napi_get_frags
kmemleak reports after running test_progs:
unreferenced object 0xffff8881b1672dc0 (size 232): comm "test_progs", pid 394388, jiffies 4354712116 (age 841.975s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): e0 84 d7 a8 81 88 ff ff 80 2c 67 b1 81 88 ff ff .........,g..... 00 40 c5 9b 81 88 ff ff 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .@.............. backtrace: [<00000000c8f01748>] napi_skb_cache_get+0xd4/0x150 [<0000000041c7fc09>] __napi_build_skb+0x15/0x50 [<00000000431c7079>] __napi_alloc_skb+0x26e/0x540 [<000000003ecfa30e>] napi_get_frags+0x59/0x140 [<0000000099b2199e>] tun_get_user+0x183d/0x3bb0 [tun] [<000000008a5adef0>] tun_chr_write_iter+0xc0/0x1b1 [tun] [<0000000049993ff4>] do_iter_readv_writev+0x19f/0x320 [<000000008f338ea2>] do_iter_write+0x135/0x630 [<000000008a3377a4>] vfs_writev+0x12e/0x440 [<00000000a6b5639a>] do_writev+0x104/0x280 [<00000000ccf065d8>] do_syscall_64+0x3b/0x90 [<00000000d776e329>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd
The issue occurs in the following scenarios: tun_get_user() napi_gro_frags() napi_frags_finish() case GRO_NORMAL: gro_normal_one() list_add_tail(&skb->list, &napi->rx_list); <-- While napi->rx_count < READ_ONCE(gro_normal_batch), <-- gro_normal_list() is not called, napi->rx_list is not empty <-- not ask to complete the gro work, will cause memory leaks in <-- following tun_napi_del() ... tun_napi_del() netif_napi_del() __netif_napi_del() <-- &napi->rx_list is not empty, which caused memory leaks
To fix, add napi_complete() after napi_gro_frags().
Weakness: CWE-401
Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49871?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2022-49871?
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-2022-49871 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49871 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49871, GHSA-jfw6-w783-5hhm, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49871.