What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities
CVE-2019-15794: Reference counting error in overlayfs/shiftfs error path when used in conjuction with aufs
- Severity: medium (CVSS 6.7 v3.1)
- Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
- EPSS: 1.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
- Public exploit or detection template: yes
- Published: 2020-04-24 · updated 2026-06-17
- Weakness: CWE-672
Description
Overlayfs in the Linux kernel and shiftfs, a non-upstream patch to the Linux kernel included in the Ubuntu 5.0 and 5.3 kernel series, both replace vma->vm_file in their mmap handlers. On error the original value is not restored, and the reference is put for the file to which vm_file points. On upstream kernels this is not an issue, as no callers dereference vm_file following after call_mmap() returns an error. However, the aufs patchs change mmap_region() to replace the fput() using a local variable with vma_fput(), which will fput() vm_file, leading to a refcount underflow.
Affected products
- Canonical Ubuntu Linux: 18.04, 19.10
- Linux kernel: 5.0, 5.3
References
- https://git.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-kernel/ubuntu/+source/linux/+git/eoan/commit/?id=270d16ae48a4dbf1c7e25e94cc3e38b4bea37635
- https://git.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-kernel/ubuntu/+source/linux/+git/eoan/commit/?id=ef81780548d20a786cc77ed4203fca146fd81ce3
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-4208-1
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-4209-1
- https://git.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-kernel/ubuntu/+source/linux/+git/eoan/commit/?id=270d16ae48a4dbf1c7e25e94cc3e38b4bea37635
- https://git.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-kernel/ubuntu/+source/linux/+git/eoan/commit/?id=ef81780548d20a786cc77ed4203fca146fd81ce3
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-4208-1
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-4209-1
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