In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: NFSD: Prevent client use-after-free during admin state revocation A stateid holds only a bare pointer to its nfs4_client; a stateid reference does not pin it

Overview

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

NFSD: Prevent client use-after-free during admin state revocation

A stateid holds only a bare pointer to its nfs4_client; a stateid reference does not pin it. The client survives only because __destroy_client() drains its stateids before free_client() runs.

nfsd4_revoke_states() drops nn->client_lock across revoke_one_stid(), which dereferences the client to revoke a stateid and read clp->cl_minorversion. A teardown racing the dropped lock can free the client first.

Pinning cl_rpc_users under client_lock blocks the DESTROY_CLIENTID and EXCHANGE_ID teardown, which refuses while cl_rpc_users is non-zero. force_expire_client() ignores it: once its wait for cl_rpc_users to reach zero has passed, a later pin goes unnoticed.

Under client_lock, skip a client whose cl_time is already zero -- force_expire_client() clears it there before waiting -- otherwise pin cl_rpc_users before dropping the lock. The walk then either sees the expiry and skips, or pins in time for that wait to cover the revoke.

Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.

Vendor advisories

• Red Hat VEX · Moderate · affected: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 · no fix planned: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 · updated 2026-09-18 · vex