In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nfsd: validate sockaddr length per family in listener_set nfsd_sock_nl_policy declares NFSD_A_SOCK_ADDR as a bare NLA_BINARY attribute with no minimum length

Overview

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

nfsd: validate sockaddr length per family in listener_set

nfsd_sock_nl_policy declares NFSD_A_SOCK_ADDR as a bare NLA_BINARY attribute with no minimum length. A CAP_NET_ADMIN caller can send a 16-byte NFSD_A_SOCK_ADDR with sa_family=AF_INET6, causing a 12-byte OOB read across three consumers (rpc_cmp_addr_port, svc_find_listener, kernel_bind).

nfsd_nl_listener_set_doit() also parsed and validated each listener entry inline in two separate loops, interleaved with mutating the running listener configuration. The validation was duplicated, used an open-coded "nla_len < sizeof(struct sockaddr)" check that was too short for AF_INET6, and handled a malformed entry inconsistently depending on which loop noticed it.

Add an nfsd_nl_validate_listeners() helper that walks the entire list once and confirms each entry parses, carries both an address and a transport name, and is long enough for its address family (sizeof(struct sockaddr_in) for AF_INET, sizeof(struct sockaddr_in6) for AF_INET6, -EAFNOSUPPORT otherwise). Call it before taking nfsd_mutex or creating the serv, so a malformed request fails cleanly with no side effects.

Since every entry is known valid by the time the two existing loops run, drop the redundant presence and per-family length checks from both, leaving only the nla_parse_nested() call needed to extract the data.

Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.

Vendor advisories

• Red Hat VEX · Moderate · affected: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 · no fix planned: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 · updated 2026-09-21 · vex