High · published September 12, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
nfsd: reject out-of-range useconds in NFSv2 SETATTR/CREATE
The NFSv2 sattr decoder converts the wire useconds to nanoseconds in
svcxdr_decode_sattr():
iap->ia_atime.tv_nsec = tmp2 * NSEC_PER_USEC;
tmp2 is a u32 and NSEC_PER_USEC is 1000, so the product is computed in
unsigned long. On ILP32 that is 32 bits, and an out-of-range useconds
value such as 4294968 wraps to tv_nsec == 704. The corruption therefore
happens during decode, before any proc function can inspect the value,
and a later range check on tv_nsec would see an in-range result and
accept it. Rejecting in the decoder yields an RPC GARBAGE_ARGS reply.
NFSv2 defines no NFSERR_INVAL, so there is no NFS-level status to return
for a malformed time argument, and the check cannot move to the proc
function the way the v3/v4 nsec range checks do.
Guard the raw useconds before the multiplication and reject values
greater than 1000000. useconds == 1000000 is kept: it is the Sun
convention for "set to the current server time", and the in-tree Linux
NFSv2 client emits it in both the atime and the mtime field for a plain
touch / utimes(file, NULL) (see encode_sattr() and
xdr_encode_current_server_time() in fs/nfs/nfs2xdr.c). Rejecting 1000000
would turn that common operation into a hard decode failure for both
SETATTR and CREATE. 1000000 * NSEC_PER_USEC is 10^9, which does not wrap
on ILP32, so the Sun convention value passes through safely. Only
genuinely out-of-range values (> 1000000) are rejected. The atime and
mtime guards are therefore symmetric.
The decoder only applied the Sun convention in the mtime block, which
clears ATTR_ATIME_SET|ATTR_MTIME_SET when mtime useconds == 1000000. If a
client puts 1000000 in the atime field but not in the mtime field, the
atime block stored an out-of-range tv_nsec (10^9) and left ATTR_ATIME_SET
set, so the bogus value reached the filesystem. Apply the convention in
the atime block as well, clearing ATTR_ATIME_SET so the server uses its
current time and ignores the value. Only ATTR_ATIME_SET is cleared there.
The mtime block keeps its existing behavior, where 1000000 means "set
both atime and mtime to now".
[ cel: various tweaks, addenda, and clean-ups ]