[PATCH v2] wifi: fix leak if split 6 GHz scanning fails

From: Fedor Pchelkin

Date: Mon Jun 01 2026 - 05:53:30 EST


rdev->int_scan_req is leaked if cfg80211_scan() fails. Note that it's
supposed to be released at ___cfg80211_scan_done() but this doesn't happen
as rdev->scan_req is NULL at that point, too, leading to the early return
from the freeing function.

unreferenced object 0xffff8881161d0800 (size 512):
comm "wpa_supplicant", pid 379, jiffies 4294749765
hex dump (first 32 bytes):
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 f0 81 13 16 81 88 ff ff ................
backtrace (crc c867fdb6):
kmemleak_alloc+0x89/0x90
__kmalloc_noprof+0x2fd/0x410
cfg80211_scan+0x133/0x730
nl80211_trigger_scan+0xc69/0x1cc0
genl_family_rcv_msg_doit+0x204/0x2f0
genl_rcv_msg+0x431/0x6b0
netlink_rcv_skb+0x143/0x3f0
genl_rcv+0x27/0x40
netlink_unicast+0x4f6/0x820
netlink_sendmsg+0x797/0xce0
__sock_sendmsg+0xc4/0x160
____sys_sendmsg+0x5e4/0x890
___sys_sendmsg+0xf8/0x180
__sys_sendmsg+0x136/0x1e0
__x64_sys_sendmsg+0x76/0xc0
x64_sys_call+0x13f0/0x17d0

Found by Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org).

Fixes: c8cb5b854b40 ("nl80211/cfg80211: support 6 GHz scanning")
Signed-off-by: Fedor Pchelkin <pchelkin@xxxxxxxxx>
---

v2: move ->int_scan_req assignment after rdev_scan() (Johannes)

net/wireless/scan.c | 9 ++++++++-
1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/net/wireless/scan.c b/net/wireless/scan.c
index 358cbc9e43d8..27a56ee2e8f0 100644
--- a/net/wireless/scan.c
+++ b/net/wireless/scan.c
@@ -1071,6 +1071,7 @@ int cfg80211_scan(struct cfg80211_registered_device *rdev)
struct cfg80211_scan_request_int *request;
struct cfg80211_scan_request_int *rdev_req = rdev->scan_req;
u32 n_channels = 0, idx, i;
+ int err;

if (!(rdev->wiphy.flags & WIPHY_FLAG_SPLIT_SCAN_6GHZ)) {
rdev_req->req.first_part = true;
@@ -1100,8 +1101,14 @@ int cfg80211_scan(struct cfg80211_registered_device *rdev)

rdev_req->req.scan_6ghz = false;
rdev_req->req.first_part = true;
+ err = rdev_scan(rdev, request);
+ if (err) {
+ kfree(request);
+ return err;
+ }
+
rdev->int_scan_req = request;
- return rdev_scan(rdev, request);
+ return 0;
}

void ___cfg80211_scan_done(struct cfg80211_registered_device *rdev,
--
2.53.0