CVE-2004-2546
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedMultiple memory leaks in Samba before 3.0.6 allow attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption).
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · moderate confidenceMultiple memory leaks in Samba versions before 3.0.6 allow unauthenticated attackers to cause denial of service by exhausting server memory through repeated exploitation of the flawed code paths. The vulnerability affects the SMB/CIFS file and print sharing server implementation, leading to progressive memory consumption until the service becomes unresponsive.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data= 1.9.17= 1.9.18= 2.0= 2.0.0= 2.0.5a= 2.2.1= 2.2.1a= 2.2.3a= 2.2.7a= 2.2.8a= 2.2.9= 2.2.10= 2.0= 2.1CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- Partial
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- Partial
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:P
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify installed Samba versionRun 'smbd --version' or 'rpm -q samba' or 'dpkg -l | grep samba' depending on your Linux distributionAffected if The version shown matches any of these: 1.9.17, 1.9.18, 2.0, 2.0.0, 2.0.5a, 2.2.1, 2.2.1a, 2.2.3a, 2.2.7a, 2.2.8a, 2.2.9, 2.2.10, or any version before 3.0.6
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Verify Samba services are runningRun 'ps aux | grep smbd' or 'systemctl status smbd' to confirm the Samba daemon is activeAffected if The smbd process is running, indicating the vulnerable service is active
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Check SMB/CIFS network exposureRun 'netstat -tlnp | grep 445' or 'ss -tlnp | grep 445' to see if port 445 (or port 139 for older configurations) is listening on network interfacesAffected if The SMB service is bound to a network-accessible IP address rather than localhost only
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Confirm no compensating controls are in placeReview firewall rules (iptables -L) or host-based access controls in smb.conf to verify if untrusted network access to SMB ports is restrictedAffected if SMB ports are accessible to untrusted networks with no IP-based restrictions in place
You are affected if Samba version is 3.0.5 or earlier (specifically any of the listed affected versions 1.9.17 through 2.2.10) and the service is running and network-accessible to untrusted clients.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataUpgrade Samba to version 3.0.6 or later to patch the memory leak vulnerabilities. If immediate upgrading is not feasible, implement network-level access controls to limit exposure to untrusted clients.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $2,800.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2004-2546 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2004-2546 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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