Executive brief
The Linux kernel contains a memory leak in the Marvell OcteonTX2 network adapter firmware driver. When initializing buffer pool IDs (BPIDs), a bitmap allocation fails to be freed if subsequent memory allocations fail, wasting kernel memory. This could gradually degrade system stability on affected devices, particularly in environments with repeated driver initialization failures.
Technical details
The vulnerability is a resource leak in the nix_setup_bpids() function in drivers/net/ethernet/marvell/octeontx2/af/rvu_nix.c. The function allocates a bitmap using rvu_alloc_bitmap() (which uses kcalloc()) but does not free it if subsequent devm_kcalloc() calls fail. The fix adds a goto-based error path that properly frees the bitmap via rvu_free_bitmap() before returning -ENOMEM. This is a local kernel memory management issue with no direct authentication or network-based attack vector; it affects only systems with OcteonTX2 hardware and can only be triggered during driver probe or initialization.
Affected products
- Linux Linux kernel All versions containing the OcteonTX2 driver with the vulnerable code path (prior to commit 36323f54cd323122a1be89ab2c316a6e55a94e30)
Timeline
- 2026-08-15: disclosed
- 2026-06-25: patched: upstream fix merged
- 2026-07-24: other: stable kernel release