# CVE-2022-50679: i40e: Fix DMA mappings leak

> A local attacker with high privileges can trigger a DMA mapping leak in the i40e driver, leading to memory exhaustion and system crash.

- **Severity:** Not scored
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** An administrator
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 9 Dec 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50679, GHSA-75w2-9m25-jvqg, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50679

## What is CVE-2022-50679?

CVE-2022-50679 is a memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 9 Dec 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:

i40e: Fix DMA mappings leak

During reallocation of RX buffers, new DMA mappings are created for
those buffers.

steps for reproduction:
while :
do
for ((i=0; i<=8160; i=i+32))
do
ethtool -G enp130s0f0 rx $i tx $i
sleep 0.5
ethtool -g enp130s0f0
done
done

This resulted in crash:
i40e 0000:01:00.1: Unable to allocate memory for the Rx descriptor ring, size=65536
Driver BUG
WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 4300 at net/core/xdp.c:141 xdp_rxq_info_unreg+0x43/0x50
Call Trace:
i40e_free_rx_resources+0x70/0x80 [i40e]
i40e_set_ringparam+0x27c/0x800 [i40e]
ethnl_set_rings+0x1b2/0x290
genl_family_rcv_msg_doit.isra.15+0x10f/0x150
genl_family_rcv_msg+0xb3/0x160
? rings_fill_reply+0x1a0/0x1a0
genl_rcv_msg+0x47/0x90
? genl_family_rcv_msg+0x160/0x160
netlink_rcv_skb+0x4c/0x120
genl_rcv+0x24/0x40
netlink_unicast+0x196/0x230
netlink_sendmsg+0x204/0x3d0
sock_sendmsg+0x4c/0x50
__sys_sendto+0xee/0x160
? handle_mm_fault+0xbe/0x1e0
? syscall_trace_enter+0x1d3/0x2c0
__x64_sys_sendto+0x24/0x30
do_syscall_64+0x5b/0x1a0
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x65/0xca
RIP: 0033:0x7f5eac8b035b
Missing register, driver bug
WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 4300 at net/core/xdp.c:119 xdp_rxq_info_unreg_mem_model+0x69/0x140
Call Trace:
xdp_rxq_info_unreg+0x1e/0x50
i40e_free_rx_resources+0x70/0x80 [i40e]
i40e_set_ringparam+0x27c/0x800 [i40e]
ethnl_set_rings+0x1b2/0x290
genl_family_rcv_msg_doit.isra.15+0x10f/0x150
genl_family_rcv_msg+0xb3/0x160
? rings_fill_reply+0x1a0/0x1a0
genl_rcv_msg+0x47/0x90
? genl_family_rcv_msg+0x160/0x160
netlink_rcv_skb+0x4c/0x120
genl_rcv+0x24/0x40
netlink_unicast+0x196/0x230
netlink_sendmsg+0x204/0x3d0
sock_sendmsg+0x4c/0x50
__sys_sendto+0xee/0x160
? handle_mm_fault+0xbe/0x1e0
? syscall_trace_enter+0x1d3/0x2c0
__x64_sys_sendto+0x24/0x30
do_syscall_64+0x5b/0x1a0
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x65/0xca
RIP: 0033:0x7f5eac8b035b

This was caused because of new buffers with different RX ring count should
substitute older ones, but those buffers were freed in
i40e_configure_rx_ring and reallocated again with i40e_alloc_rx_bi,
thus kfree on rx_bi caused leak of already mapped DMA.

Fix this by reallocating ZC with rx_bi_zc struct when BPF program loads. Additionally
reallocate back to rx_bi when BPF program unloads.

If BPF program is loaded/unloaded and XSK pools are created, reallocate
RX queues accordingly in XSP_SETUP_XSK_POOL handler.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-50679?


## How do I fix CVE-2022-50679?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2022-50679 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-50679 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2022-50679 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-50679 is a memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 9 Dec 2025. 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-2022-50679 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux. 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-2022-50679/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-50679/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-50679
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-50679
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-50679

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-50679/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.