[PATCH v2 3/5] arm64: kexec_file: Fix image->elf_headers memory leak in retry loop

From: Jinjie Ruan

Date: Tue Jul 28 2026 - 23:16:24 EST


If load_other_segments() fails after image->elf_headers is assigned,
the memory lifecycle is safely managed by the global kimage object
and will be freed in arch_kimage_file_post_load_cleanup().

However, during a retry loop in image_load(), a subsequent iteration
will allocate a new buffer and overwrite image->elf_headers. This
permanently leaks the stale memory from the previous iteration before
the global cleanup can track it.

Fix this by explicitly freeing the stale `image->elf_headers` buffer
before assigning the newly allocated headers.

Cc: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@xxxxxxx>
Cc: Will Deacon <will@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Thomas Huth <thuth@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Breno Leitao <leitao@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Yeoreum Yun <yeoreum.yun@xxxxxxx>
Cc: Baoquan He <bhe@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Fixes: 108aa503657e ("arm64: kexec_file: try more regions if loading segments fails")
Signed-off-by: Jinjie Ruan <ruanjinjie@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
arch/arm64/kernel/machine_kexec_file.c | 4 ++++
1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)

diff --git a/arch/arm64/kernel/machine_kexec_file.c b/arch/arm64/kernel/machine_kexec_file.c
index e48f29167b38..2f750e5f4fcc 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/kernel/machine_kexec_file.c
+++ b/arch/arm64/kernel/machine_kexec_file.c
@@ -112,6 +112,10 @@ int load_other_segments(struct kimage *image,
vfree(headers);
goto out_err;
}
+
+ if (unlikely(image->elf_headers))
+ vfree(image->elf_headers);
+
image->elf_headers = headers;
image->elf_load_addr = kbuf.mem;
image->elf_headers_sz = headers_sz;
--
2.34.1