CVE-2026-89665
moderateUnauthenticated NFSv2 timestamp corruption via integer wrap in Linux kernel nfsd
The Linux kernel's NFS server (nfsd) contains an integer-wrapping flaw in the NFSv2 SETATTR/CREATE attribute decoder: a u32 useconds value from the wire is multiplied by 1000 in unsigned long, which wraps on 32-bit (ILP32) kernels, so an out-of-range value such as 4294968 silently becomes a small, in-range tv_nsec that later range checks accept and pass to the filesystem. A related asymmetry meant that the 'current server time' convention (useconds == 1000000) was honored for mtime but not atime, allowing an out-of-range tv_nsec of 10^9 to reach the filesystem on any architecture. An unauthenticated network attacker who can reach an NFSv2-exporting Linux server can exploit this to set bogus, attacker-chosen file timestamps (high integrity impact, low availability impact per CVSS 3.1 score 8.2). Affected systems are Linux kernels prior to the fixing commit running nfsd with NFSv2 enabled, with the wrap issue specifically requiring a 32-bit kernel. No public proof of concept or in-the-wild exploitation is known, and the flaw is not in the CISA KEV catalog.
What to do: Apply a kernel update containing the nfsd fix (values >1000000 useconds are now rejected with GARBAGE_ARGS at decode time). As immediate mitigation, disable NFSv2 on nfsd exports (serve only NFSv3/v4), restrict port 2049 to trusted clients via firewalling, and audit any 32-bit ARM/embedded or legacy systems acting as NFS servers, since those are the primary wrap-affected population. Verify that exported filesystems do not show impossible timestamps (e.g., tv_nsec artifacts) as a detection check.
| Linux kernel (nfsd, NFSv2 SETATTR/CREATE) | — |
Order-of-magnitude estimate by the model from install counts, market share and public scan data it knows; verify before quoting.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nfsd: reject out-of-range useconds in NFSv2 SETATTR/CREATE The NFSv2 sattr decoder converts the wire useconds to nanoseconds in svcxdr_decode_sattr(): iap->ia_atime.tv_nsec = tmp2 * NSEC_PER_USEC; tmp2 is a u32 and NSEC_PER_USEC is 1000, so the product is computed in unsigned long. On ILP32 that is 32 bits, and an out-of-range useconds value such as 4294968 wraps to tv_nsec == 704. The corruption therefore happens during decode, before any proc function can inspect the value, and a later range check on tv_nsec would see an in-range result and accept it. Rejecting in the decoder yields an RPC GARBAGE_ARGS reply. NFSv2 defines no NFSERR_INVAL, so there is no NFS-level status to return for a malformed time argument, and the check cannot move to the proc function the way the v3/v4 nsec range checks do. Guard the raw useconds before the multiplication and reject values greater than 1000000. useconds == 1000000 is kept: it is the Sun convention for "set to the current server time", and the in-tree Linux NFSv2 client emits it in both the atime and the mtime field for a plain touch / utimes(file, NULL) (see encode_sattr() and xdr_encode_current_server_time() in fs/nfs/nfs2xdr.c). Rejecting 1000000 would turn that common operation into a hard decode failure for both SETATTR and CREATE. 1000000 * NSEC_PER_USEC is 10^9, which does not wrap on ILP32, so the Sun convention value passes through safely. Only genuinely out-of-range values (> 1000000) are rejected. The atime and mtime guards are therefore symmetric. The decoder only applied the Sun convention in the mtime block, which clears ATTR_ATIME_SET|ATTR_MTIME_SET when mtime useconds == 1000000. If a client puts 1000000 in the atime field but not in the mtime field, the atime block stored an out-of-range tv_nsec (10^9) and left ATTR_ATIME_SET set, so the bogus value reached the filesystem. Apply the convention in the atime block as well, clearing ATTR_ATIME_SET so the server uses its current time and ignores the value. Only ATTR_ATIME_SET is cleared there. The mtime block keeps its existing behavior, where 1000000 means "set both atime and mtime to now". [ cel: various tweaks, addenda, and clean-ups ]
- Vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:L
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