Linux Kernel up to 6.1.8 dmaengine lib/refcount.c dma_chan_get use after free

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.1.8. It has been rated as critical. This affects the function dma_chan_get in the library lib/refcount.c of the component dmaengine. The manipulation leads to use after free. This vulnerability is documented as CVE-2022-49753. There is not any exploit available. Upgrading the affected component is advised.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.1.8 and classified as critical. This issue affects the function dma_chan_get in the library lib/refcount.c of the component dmaengine. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a use after free vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-416. Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: dmaengine: Fix double increment of client_count in dma_chan_get() The first time dma_chan_get() is called for a channel the channel client_count is incorrectly incremented twice for public channels, first in balance_ref_count(), and again prior to returning. This results in an incorrect client count which will lead to the channel resources not being freed when they should be. A simple test of repeated module load and unload of async_tx on a Dell Power Edge R7425 also shows this resulting in a kref underflow warning. [ 124.329662] async_tx: api initialized (async) [ 129.000627] async_tx: api initialized (async) [ 130.047839] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [ 130.052472] refcount_t: underflow; use-after-free. [ 130.057279] WARNING: CPU: 3 PID: 19364 at lib/refcount.c:28 refcount_warn_saturate+0xba/0x110 [ 130.065811] Modules linked in: async_tx(-) rfkill intel_rapl_msr intel_rapl_common amd64_edac edac_mce_amd ipmi_ssif kvm_amd dcdbas kvm mgag200 drm_shmem_helper acpi_ipmi irqbypass drm_kms_helper ipmi_si syscopyarea sysfillrect rapl pcspkr ipmi_devintf sysimgblt fb_sys_fops k10temp i2c_piix4 ipmi_msghandler acpi_power_meter acpi_cpufreq vfat fat drm fuse xfs libcrc32c sd_mod t10_pi sg ahci crct10dif_pclmul libahci crc32_pclmul crc32c_intel ghash_clmulni_intel igb megaraid_sas i40e libata i2c_algo_bit ccp sp5100_tco dca dm_mirror dm_region_hash dm_log dm_mod [last unloaded: async_tx] [ 130.117361] CPU: 3 PID: 19364 Comm: modprobe Kdump: loaded Not tainted 5.14.0-185.el9.x86_64 #1 [ 130.126091] Hardware name: Dell Inc. PowerEdge R7425/02MJ3T, BIOS 1.18.0 01/17/2022 [ 130.133806] RIP: 0010:refcount_warn_saturate+0xba/0x110 [ 130.139041] Code: 01 01 e8 6d bd 55 00 0f 0b e9 72 9d 8a 00 80 3d 26 18 9c 01 00 75 85 48 c7 c7 f8 a3 03 9d c6 05 16 18 9c 01 01 e8 4a bd 55 00 0b e9 4f 9d 8a 00 80 3d 01 18 9c 01 00 0f 85 5e ff ff ff 48 c7 [ 130.157807] RSP: 0018:ffffbf98898afe68 EFLAGS: 00010286 [ 130.163036] RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ffff9da06028e598 RCX: 0000000000000000 [ 130.170172] RDX: ffff9daf9de26480 RSI: ffff9daf9de198a0 RDI: ffff9daf9de198a0 [ 130.177316] RBP: ffff9da7cddf3970 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 00000000ffff7fff [ 130.184459] R10: ffffbf98898afd00 R11: ffffffff9d9e8c28 R12: ffff9da7cddf1970 [ 130.191596] R13: 0000000000000000 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: 0000000000000000 [ 130.198739] FS: 00007f646435c740(0000) GS:ffff9daf9de00000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 130.206832] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 130.212586] CR2: 00007f6463b214f0 CR3: 00000008ab98c000 CR4: 00000000003506e0 [ 130.219729] Call Trace: [ 130.222192] [ 130.224305] dma_chan_put+0x10d/0x110 [ 130.227988] dmaengine_put+0x7a/0xa0 [ 130.231575] __do_sys_delete_module.constprop.0+0x178/0x280 [ 130.237157] ? syscall_trace_enter.constprop.0+0x145/0x1d0 [ 130.242652] do_syscall_64+0x5c/0x90 [ 130.246240] ? exc_page_fault+0x62/0x150 [ 130.250178] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd [ 130.255243] RIP: 0033:0x7f6463a3f5ab [ 130.258830] Code: 73 01 c3 48 8b 0d 75 a8 1b 00 f7 d8 64 89 01 48 83 c8 ff c3 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 90 f3 0f 1e fa b8 b0 00 00 00 0f 05 3d 01 f0 ff ff 73 01 c3 48 8b 0d 45 a8 1b 00 f7 d8 64 89 01 48 [ 130.277591] RSP: 002b:00007fff22f972c8 EFLAGS: 00000206 ORIG_RAX: 00000000000000b0 [ 130.285164] RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 000055b6786edd40 RCX: 00007f6463a3f5ab [ 130.292303] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000800 RDI: 000055b6786edda8 [ 130.299443] RBP: 000055b6786edd40 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000 [ 130.306584] R10: 00007f6463b9eac0 R11: 0000000000000206 R12: 000055b6786edda8 [ 130.313731] R13: 0000000000000000 R14: 000055b6786edda8 R15: 00007fff22f995f8 [ 130.320875] [ 130.323081] ---[ end trace eff7156d56b5cf25 ]--- cat /sys/class/dma/dma0chan*/in_use would get the wrong result. 2 2 2 Test-by: Jie Hai

The advisory is shared at git.kernel.org. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2022-49753 since 03/27/2025. The exploitation is known to be easy. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 12/06/2025).

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 234965 (Amazon Linux 2 : kernel (ALASKERNEL-5.10-2025-089)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 4.14.305, 4.19.272, 5.4.231, 5.10.166, 5.15.91 or 6.1.9 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 1b409e14b4b7af034e0450f95c165b6c5c87dbc1/c6221afe573413fd2981e291f7df4a58283e0654/18dd3b30d4c7e8440c63118c7a7b687372b9567f/42ecd72f02cd657b00b559621e7ef7d2c4d3e5f1/71c601965532c38030133535f7cd93c1efa75af1/142d644fd2cc059ffa042fbfb68e766433ef3afd/f3dc1b3b4750851a94212dba249703dd0e50bb20 is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at git.kernel.org. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (234965) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-0649). Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Affected

• Google Container-Optimized OS
• Debian Linux
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• SUSE openSUSE
• Dell Avamar
• Open Source Linux Kernel
• SolarWinds Security Event Manager
• Dell NetWorker
• Dell Secure Connect Gateway

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 4.14.304
• 4.19.271
• 5.4.230
• 5.10.165
• 5.15.0
• 5.15.1
• 5.15.2
• 5.15.3
• 5.15.4
• 5.15.5
• 5.15.6
• 5.15.7
• 5.15.8
• 5.15.9
• 5.15.10
• 5.15.11
• 5.15.12
• 5.15.13
• 5.15.14
• 5.15.15
• 5.15.16
• 5.15.17
• 5.15.18
• 5.15.19
• 5.15.20
• 5.15.21
• 5.15.22
• 5.15.23
• 5.15.24
• 5.15.25
• 5.15.26
• 5.15.27
• 5.15.28
• 5.15.29
• 5.15.30
• 5.15.31
• 5.15.32
• 5.15.33
• 5.15.34
• 5.15.35
• 5.15.36
• 5.15.37
• 5.15.38
• 5.15.39
• 5.15.40
• 5.15.41
• 5.15.42
• 5.15.43
• 5.15.44
• 5.15.45
• 5.15.46
• 5.15.47
• 5.15.48
• 5.15.49
• 5.15.50
• 5.15.51
• 5.15.52
• 5.15.53
• 5.15.54
• 5.15.55
• 5.15.56
• 5.15.57
• 5.15.58
• 5.15.59
• 5.15.60
• 5.15.61
• 5.15.62
• 5.15.63
• 5.15.64
• 5.15.65
• 5.15.66
• 5.15.67
• 5.15.68
• 5.15.69
• 5.15.70
• 5.15.71
• 5.15.72
• 5.15.73
• 5.15.74
• 5.15.75
• 5.15.76
• 5.15.77
• 5.15.78
• 5.15.79
• 5.15.80
• 5.15.81
• 5.15.82
• 5.15.83
• 5.15.84
• 5.15.85
• 5.15.86
• 5.15.87
• 5.15.88
• 5.15.89
• 5.15.90
• 6.1.0
• 6.1.1
• 6.1.2
• 6.1.3
• 6.1.4
• 6.1.5
• 6.1.6
• 6.1.7
• 6.1.8

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

• 🔍
• 🔍
• 🔍

CPE 2.2info

• 🔍
• 🔍
• 🔍

CVSSv4info

CVSSv3info

CVSSv2info

Exploitinginfo

Threat Intelligenceinfo

Countermeasuresinfo

Timelineinfo

Sourcesinfo

Entryinfo

Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Discussion