[PATCH 3/3] ksmbd: fix mechToken leak when SPNEGO decode fails after token alloc

From: Greg Kroah-Hartman

Date: Mon Apr 06 2026 - 09:48:23 EST


The kernel ASN.1 BER decoder calls action callbacks incrementally as it
walks the input. When ksmbd_decode_negTokenInit() reaches the mechToken
[2] OCTET STRING element, ksmbd_neg_token_alloc() allocates
conn->mechToken immediately via kmemdup_nul(). If a later element in
the same blob is malformed, then the decoder will return nonzero after
the allocation is already live. This could happen if mechListMIC [3]
overrunse the enclosing SEQUENCE.

decode_negotiation_token() then sets conn->use_spnego = false because
both the negTokenInit and negTokenTarg grammars failed. The cleanup at
the bottom of smb2_sess_setup() is gated on use_spnego:

if (conn->use_spnego && conn->mechToken) {
kfree(conn->mechToken);
conn->mechToken = NULL;
}

so the kfree is skipped, causing the mechToken to never be freed.

This codepath is reachable pre-authentication, so untrusted clients can
cause slow memory leaks on a server without even being properly
authenticated.

Fix this up by not checking check for use_spnego, as it's not required,
so the memory will always be properly freed. At the same time, always
free the memory in ksmbd_conn_free() incase some other failure path
forgot to free it.

Cc: Namjae Jeon <linkinjeon@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Steve French <smfrench@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Sergey Senozhatsky <senozhatsky@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Tom Talpey <tom@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: linux-cifs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: stable <stable@xxxxxxxxxx>
Assisted-by: gregkh_clanker_t1000
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
fs/smb/server/connection.c | 1 +
fs/smb/server/smb2pdu.c | 2 +-
2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/fs/smb/server/connection.c b/fs/smb/server/connection.c
index 1bb2081c492c..26cfce344861 100644
--- a/fs/smb/server/connection.c
+++ b/fs/smb/server/connection.c
@@ -96,6 +96,7 @@ void ksmbd_conn_free(struct ksmbd_conn *conn)
xa_destroy(&conn->sessions);
kvfree(conn->request_buf);
kfree(conn->preauth_info);
+ kfree(conn->mechToken);
if (atomic_dec_and_test(&conn->refcnt)) {
conn->transport->ops->free_transport(conn->transport);
kfree(conn);
diff --git a/fs/smb/server/smb2pdu.c b/fs/smb/server/smb2pdu.c
index 6f658dc20758..a344937595f4 100644
--- a/fs/smb/server/smb2pdu.c
+++ b/fs/smb/server/smb2pdu.c
@@ -1915,7 +1915,7 @@ int smb2_sess_setup(struct ksmbd_work *work)
else if (rc)
rsp->hdr.Status = STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE;

- if (conn->use_spnego && conn->mechToken) {
+ if (conn->mechToken) {
kfree(conn->mechToken);
conn->mechToken = NULL;
}
--
2.53.0