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HIGH Introduced in 5.7

ceph DelegIno Loop

CVE-2026-89648

CVSS 7.5 / 10.0 NVD

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

KernelScan AI7.5HIGH

01

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ceph: cap delegated inode count in ceph_parse_deleg_inos() ceph_parse_deleg_inos() decodes interval sets of delegated inode numbers from an MDS create-with-delegation reply. For each set it reads a 64-bit start and a 64-bit len with ceph_decode_64_safe(), which only validates that the eight bytes are present in the message, not the value, and then loops over len while inserting entries into s_delegated_inos. len is fully attacker controlled. A malicious or compromised MDS can send one huge interval, many intervals in one reply, duplicate intervals, or repeated replies that accumulate delegated inodes on the same session. The original code bounded none of these and could spin the insert loop or grow the xarray without limit. Bound both dimensions with a single enforcement point. Track the number of delegated inodes held by each MDS session in an atomic counter and grow it only in ceph_insert_deleg_ino(), which uses atomic_add_unless() to refuse to push the count past CEPH_MAX_DELEG_INOS. Because that helper is the only place the counter grows, the per-session population can never exceed the cap, so no separate per-session pre-check is needed. The counter is decremented when async create consumes a delegated inode or when an insert fails, incremented when a delegated inode is restored, initialized with the session xarray, and reset when reconnect destroys the xarray. A per-session cap alone still lets one reply spin the insert loop on duplicate ranges without growing the counter, so also cap the aggregate interval length accepted from a single reply. Together these bound both the loop trip count per reply and the xarray population across replies. The cap is a fixed, client-chosen constant rather than a value derived from the MDS. mds_client_prealloc_inos is a userspace MDS configuration option; it is never sent to the kernel client on the wire, and a server-supplied bound could not be trusted for a defensive limit in any case. The constant is set well above that option's documented default of 1000 (a generous multiple), so legitimate refill behavior is unaffected while the CPU and xarray memory a malformed delegation stream can consume stays bounded. Impact: a malicious or compromised Ceph MDS can no longer make a client spin through an unbounded delegated-inode interval or grow one session's delegated-inode xarray without limit.

02

Engine v0.6.0

Risk summary

A malicious or compromised Ceph MDS server can send crafted delegation replies that cause a kernel Ceph filesystem client to spin in an unbounded loop and grow memory without limit, leading to CPU exhaustion or OOM. Any system mounting a Ceph filesystem is at risk; the attacker is the MDS side, requiring no privileges on the client.

Affectedfs/ceph/mds_client.c (Ceph filesystem client)

Vulnerability analysis

The Ceph filesystem client receives delegated inode numbers from its MDS server to enable faster file creation. When processing these replies, the client failed to limit how many inodes could be delegated in a single message or held across a session. A malicious or compromised MDS can exploit this by sending replies with extremely large or duplicate delegation ranges, causing the client to waste CPU in an unbounded loop and consume unbounded memory. The fix enforces a hard limit on delegated inodes per session and also bounds the total delegation size accepted from any single reply, preventing both the loop from spinning and memory from growing without limit. Any system acting as a Ceph filesystem client is exposed; the attacker controls or compromises the MDS server, and no client-side privileges are required.

03

BranchIntroducedFixed inPatch commit
6.185.76.18.51c040e139f1a6
mainline5.77.3-rc14bd3158bd624
7.25.77.2.4f341270ac5f5