CVE-2026-23032

null_blk: fix kmemleak by releasing references to fault configfs items

published January 31, 2026

CVSS
—
EPSS
0%
Percentile
13.5
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

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

null_blk: fix kmemleak by releasing references to fault configfs items

When CONFIG_BLK_DEV_NULL_BLK_FAULT_INJECTION is enabled, the null-blk

driver sets up fault injection support by creating the timeout_inject,

requeue_inject, and init_hctx_fault_inject configfs items as children

of the top-level nullbX configfs group.

However, when the nullbX device is removed, the references taken to

these fault-config configfs items are not released. As a result,

kmemleak reports a memory leak, for example:

unreferenced object 0xc00000021ff25c40 (size 32):

comm "mkdir", pid 10665, jiffies 4322121578

hex dump (first 32 bytes):

69 6e 69 74 5f 68 63 74 78 5f 66 61 75 6c 74 5f init_hctx_fault_

69 6e 6a 65 63 74 00 88 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 inject..........

backtrace (crc 1a018c86):

__kmalloc_node_track_caller_noprof+0x494/0xbd8

kvasprintf+0x74/0xf4

config_item_set_name+0xf0/0x104

config_group_init_type_name+0x48/0xfc

fault_config_init+0x48/0xf0

0xc0080000180559e4

configfs_mkdir+0x304/0x814

vfs_mkdir+0x49c/0x604

do_mkdirat+0x314/0x3d0

sys_mkdir+0xa0/0xd8

system_call_exception+0x1b0/0x4f0

system_call_vectored_common+0x15c/0x2ec

Fix this by explicitly releasing the references to the fault-config

configfs items when dropping the reference to the top-level nullbX

configfs group.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS
Not scored
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00234 · 13.5th percentile
Published
2026-01-31T11:42Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 31 JAN 11:42Z
    null_blk: fix kmemleak by releasing references to fault configfs items
    cvelistv5