[PATCH v2 8/9] nfsd: cap decoded POSIX ACL count to bound sort cost

From: Jeff Layton

Date: Sat May 30 2026 - 09:23:27 EST


From: Chris Mason <clm@xxxxxxxx>

nfsd4_decode_posixacl() reads a u32 entry count off the wire and passes
it straight to posix_acl_alloc() and sort_pacl_range(). The latter is
an O(n^2) bubble sort, so a client-chosen count drives unbounded CPU in
the server's compound processing path.

nfsd4_decode_posixacl()
xdr_stream_decode_u32(&count) /* uncapped u32 */
posix_acl_alloc(count, GFP_KERNEL)
sort_pacl_range(*acl, 0, count - 1) /* O(n^2) bubble sort */

The encoder side in the same file already rejects ACLs whose a_count
exceeds NFS_ACL_MAX_ENTRIES, but the decoder introduced in commit
5fc51dfc2eb1 ("NFSD: Add support for XDR decoding POSIX draft ACLs")
omitted the symmetric check.

Fix by rejecting a wire count greater than NFS_ACL_MAX_ENTRIES with
nfserr_inval, before any allocation, so the sort is bounded by
NFS_ACL_MAX_ENTRIES^2 comparisons.

While we're in here, also fix the nfserr_resource return if
posix_acl_alloc() fails. That's not a legal error code for v4.1+. Change
it to return nfserr_jukebox as that's more appropriate for memory
allocation failures.

Fixes: 5fc51dfc2eb1 ("NFSD: Add support for XDR decoding POSIX draft ACLs")
Assisted-by: kres:claude-opus-4-7
Reported-by: Chris Mason <clm@xxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Chris Mason <clm@xxxxxxxx>
---
fs/nfsd/nfs4xdr.c | 11 ++++++++++-
1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/fs/nfsd/nfs4xdr.c b/fs/nfsd/nfs4xdr.c
index c6c50c376b23..508f6986842f 100644
--- a/fs/nfsd/nfs4xdr.c
+++ b/fs/nfsd/nfs4xdr.c
@@ -449,9 +449,18 @@ nfsd4_decode_posixacl(struct nfsd4_compoundargs *argp, struct posix_acl **acl)
if (xdr_stream_decode_u32(argp->xdr, &count) < 0)
return nfserr_bad_xdr;

+ /*
+ * The NFSv4 POSIX ACL draft doesn't define a max number of ACE's, but
+ * the NFSACL spec does. For NFSv4, cap the number of entries to the v3
+ * limit, as we want to ensure that ACLs set via NFSv4 POSIX ACL
+ * extensions are retrievable via NFSACL.
+ */
+ if (count > NFS_ACL_MAX_ENTRIES)
+ return nfserr_inval;
+
*acl = posix_acl_alloc(count, GFP_KERNEL);
if (*acl == NULL)
- return nfserr_resource;
+ return nfserr_jukebox;

(*acl)->a_count = count;
for (ace = (*acl)->a_entries; ace < (*acl)->a_entries + count; ace++) {

--
2.54.0