published September 12, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
net/smc: fix socket refcount leak in smc_switch_conns()
smc_switch_conns() takes a reference on the SMC socket before dropping
lgr->conns_lock, so the connection stays alive while the CDC slot is
fetched:
sock_hold(&smc->sk);
read_unlock_bh(&lgr->conns_lock);
/* pre-fetch buffer outside of send_lock, might sleep */
rc = smc_cdc_get_free_slot(conn, to_lnk, &wr_buf, NULL, &pend);
if (rc)
goto err_out;
The err_out label only drops the wr_tx link reference, so this early exit
returns without the matching sock_put(). The second error exit is not
affected, because sock_put() has already run by then.
A leaked sk_refcnt means the smc_sock is never destroyed. Its send and
receive buffers stay allocated, and for a user socket the reference held
on the network namespace is never released, so the netns can no longer be
torn down.
smc_cdc_get_free_slot() fails when the target link goes down or when the
connection has been killed while the switch is in progress. Both are
reachable during the link failover this function implements, so the leak
is triggered by the same hardware events that make smc_switch_conns() run
in the first place.
Restructure so there is a single sock_put() covering both outcomes,
instead of adding a second one to the error path.