Executive brief
A vulnerability was identified in the Linux kernel's Liquidio network driver that could lead to memory leaks. This occurs during the setup of network interface cards when an error happens, causing the system to fail to properly release allocated memory. Over time, this could degrade system performance or lead to a denial-of-service condition by exhausting available system memory.
Technical details
An off-by-one error exists in the 'liquidio' Ethernet driver within the 'setup_nic_devices()' function in 'drivers/net/ethernet/cavium/liquidio/lio_main.c'. When the initialization loop fails and jumps to the 'setup_nic_dev_free' label, the cleanup loop 'while(i--)' incorrectly skips the current index 'i', resulting in a memory leak of the resources allocated at that index. Additionally, the 'devlink_alloc' failure path failed to decrement the index to account for the last successfully allocated device. This is a local vulnerability that can be triggered during hardware initialization or driver loading, potentially leading to kernel memory exhaustion. Patches have been released across multiple stable kernel branches to correct the loop logic and index management.
Affected products
- Linux Linux Kernel 4.2 to 5.10.250, 5.11 to 5.15.200, 5.16 to 6.1.163, 6.2 to 6.6.124, 6.7 to 6.12.70, 6.13 to 6.18.10, 6.19-rc1 to 6.19-rc8
Timeline
- 2026-03-18: disclosed
- 2026-03-18: advisory
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/293eaad0d6d6b2a37a458c7deb7be345349cd963
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8558aef4e8a1a83049ab906d21d391093cfa7e7f
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a0d2389c8cdc1f05de5eb8663bffe9ed05dca769
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/af38d9a5cb49fe9d0d282b44f17fdc1f3270d99d
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d86c58eb005eb99da402452f3db7a6e0eae32815
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f1216b80c9040a904d2ad7c8cd24ca0ff1f36932
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f86bd16280a0f88b538394e0565c56ce4756da99