CVE-2022-49801: tracing: Fix memory leak in tracing_read_pipe()

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2025-05-01 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-401

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()

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 5.10.190 before 5.11; from 5.12 before 5.15.80; from 5.16 before 6.0.10; 6.1-rc1, 6.1-rc2, 6.1-rc3, 6.1-rc4, 6.1-rc5 — fixed in 5.11, 5.15.80, 6.0.10

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.11, 5.15.80, 6.0.10. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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