CVE-2026-89695

Summary

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

nfsd: cap decoded POSIX ACL count to bound sort cost

nfsd4_decode_posixacl() reads a u32 entry count off the wire and passes it straight to posix_acl_alloc() and sort_pacl_range(). The latter is an O(n^2) bubble sort, so a client-chosen count drives unbounded CPU in the server's compound processing path.

nfsd4_decode_posixacl()
  xdr_stream_decode_u32(&count)       /* uncapped u32 */
  posix_acl_alloc(count, GFP_KERNEL)
  sort_pacl_range(*acl, 0, count - 1) /* O(n^2) bubble sort */

The encoder side in the same file already rejects ACLs whose a_count exceeds NFS_ACL_MAX_ENTRIES, but the decoder introduced in commit 5fc51dfc2eb1 ("NFSD: Add support for XDR decoding POSIX draft ACLs") omitted the symmetric check.

Fix by rejecting a wire count greater than NFS_ACL_MAX_ENTRIES with nfserr_inval, before any allocation, so the sort is bounded by NFS_ACL_MAX_ENTRIES^2 comparisons.

While we're in here, also fix the nfserr_resource return if posix_acl_alloc() fails. That's not a legal error code for v4.1+. Change it to return nfserr_jukebox as that's more appropriate for memory allocation failures.

Affected Software

VendorProductVersion RangeStatus
LinuxLinux5fc51dfc2eb160bd7ab3251ab1767cacf9c8bf05 < ea14d71d6ecb925673761bcf79f781f7dc9042ccaffected
LinuxLinux5fc51dfc2eb160bd7ab3251ab1767cacf9c8bf05 < 4bc1108e876153a2dd6d874052b99182c3603135affected
LinuxLinux7.0affected
LinuxLinux0 < 7.0unaffected
LinuxLinux7.2.4 <= 7.2.*unaffected
LinuxLinux7.3-rc1 <= *unaffected

Weaknesses

References