CVE-2024-26629
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 · uneditedIn the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nfsd: fix RELEASE_LOCKOWNER The test on so_count in nfsd4_release_lockowner() is nonsense and harmful. Revert to using check_for_locks(), changing that to not sleep. First: harmful. As is documented in the kdoc comment for nfsd4_release_lockowner(), the test on so_count can transiently return a false positive resulting in a return of NFS4ERR_LOCKS_HELD when in fact no locks are held. This is clearly a protocol violation and with the Linux NFS client it can cause incorrect behaviour. If RELEASE_LOCKOWNER is sent while some other thread is still processing a LOCK request which failed because, at the time that request was received, the given owner held a conflicting lock, then the nfsd thread processing that LOCK request can hold a reference (conflock) to the lock owner that causes nfsd4_release_lockowner() to return an incorrect error. The Linux NFS client ignores that NFS4ERR_LOCKS_HELD error because it never sends NFS4_RELEASE_LOCKOWNER without first releasing any locks, so it knows that the error is impossible. It assumes the lock owner was in fact released so it feels free to use the same lock owner identifier in some later locking request. When it does reuse a lock owner identifier for which a previous RELEASE failed, it will naturally use a lock_seqid of zero. However the server, which didn't release the lock owner, will expect a larger lock_seqid and so will respond with NFS4ERR_BAD_SEQID. So clearly it is harmful to allow a false positive, which testing so_count allows. The test is nonsense because ... well... it doesn't mean anything. so_count is the sum of three different counts. 1/ the set of states listed on so_stateids 2/ the set of active vfs locks owned by any of those states 3/ various transient counts such as for conflicting locks. When it is tested against '2' it is clear that one of these is the transient reference obtained by find_lockowner_str_locked(). It is not clear what the other one is expected to be. In practice, the count is often 2 because there is precisely one state on so_stateids. If there were more, this would fail. In my testing I see two circumstances when RELEASE_LOCKOWNER is called. In one case, CLOSE is called before RELEASE_LOCKOWNER. That results in all the lock states being removed, and so the lockowner being discarded (it is removed when there are no more references which usually happens when the lock state is discarded). When nfsd4_release_lockowner() finds that the lock owner doesn't exist, it returns success. The other case shows an so_count of '2' and precisely one state listed in so_stateid. It appears that the Linux client uses a separate lock owner for each file resulting in one lock state per lock owner, so this test on '2' is safe. For another client it might not be safe. So this patch changes check_for_locks() to use the (newish) find_any_file_locked() so that it doesn't take a reference on the nfs4_file and so never calls nfsd_file_put(), and so never sleeps. With this check is it safe to restore the use of check_for_locks() rather than testing so_count against the mysterious '2'.
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 analysisShared resources are accessed without correct locking, so concurrent operations interleave into inconsistent — and sometimes exploitable — states, or deadlock the service outright. These bugs are subtle and timing-dependent. The fix is correct, consistent locking or atomic operations around every shared resource.
General guidance for the improper locking class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
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>= 5.19, < 6.1.79>= 6.2, < 6.6.15>= 6.7, < 6.7.3= 6.8CVSS 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
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
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.
dbcve · scoped6.1.796.6.156.7.3
Upgrade to kernel >= 6.1.79 (for 6.1.x branch), >= 6.6.15 (for 6.2-6.6.x branch), >= 6.7.3 (for 6.7.x branch), or >= 6.9 (for 6.8 branch)
- Identify the current running kernel version using 'uname -r'
- Determine the appropriate target version based on your current branch: for 6.1.x series upgrade to >=6.1.79, for 6.2-6.6.x upgrade to >=6.6.15, for 6.7.x upgrade to >=6.7.3, for 6.8 upgrade to >=6.9
- Update the Linux kernel package via distribution package manager (e.g., 'apt-get dist-upgrade' or 'yum update' for RHEL-based systems)
- Reboot the system to load the new kernel
- Verify the fix is applied by checking the kernel version and confirming nfsd functionality
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2024-26629 — 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-2024-26629 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
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