Bug 2507154 (CVE-2026-64419)

Summary: CVE-2026-64419 kernel: mm/shrinker: do not hold RCU lock in shrinker_debugfs_count_show()
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: low Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the Linux kernel. A local user could trigger a system crash by reading a specific debugfs "count" file related to memory management. This issue arises because a function attempts to perform an operation that can cause it to pause (sleep) while holding a critical system lock, which is an invalid operation. This vulnerability could lead to a denial of service, making the system unavailable.
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-07-25 10:07:54 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

mm/shrinker: do not hold RCU lock in shrinker_debugfs_count_show()

Reading the debugfs "count" file of a memcg-aware shrinker can sleep
inside an RCU read-side critical section:

  BUG: sleeping function called from invalid context at kernel/cgroup/rstat.c:421
  RCU nest depth: 1, expected: 0
   css_rstat_flush
   mem_cgroup_flush_stats
   zswap_shrinker_count
   shrinker_debugfs_count_show

shrinker_debugfs_count_show() invokes the ->count_objects() callback under
rcu_read_lock().  The zswap callback flushes memcg stats via
css_rstat_flush(), which may sleep, so it must not run under RCU.

The RCU lock is not needed here.  mem_cgroup_iter() takes RCU internally
and returns a memcg holding a css reference (dropped on the next iteration
or by mem_cgroup_iter_break()), so the memcg stays alive without it.  The
shrinker is kept alive by the open debugfs file: shrinker_free() removes
the debugfs entries via debugfs_remove_recursive(), which waits for
in-flight readers to drain, before call_rcu(..., shrinker_free_rcu_cb). 
The sibling "scan" handler already invokes the sleeping ->scan_objects()
callback with no RCU section.

Drop the rcu_read_lock()/rcu_read_unlock().