Bug 2513137 (CVE-2026-68090)

Summary: CVE-2026-68090 kernel: debugobjects: Plug race against a concurrent OOM disable
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security <prodsec-ir-bot>
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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Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the `debugobjects` component of the Linux kernel. A race condition can occur when an out-of-memory (OOM) situation happens concurrently with certain debug object operations. This can lead to a dysfunctional timer and a kernel warning, potentially causing system instability or a denial of service (DoS).
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-10 12:01:58 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

debugobjects: Plug race against a concurrent OOM disable

syzbot reported a puzzling splat:

   WARNING: kernel/time/hrtimer.c:443 at stub_timer+0xa/0x20

stub_timer() is installed as timer callback function in
hrtimer_fixup_assert_init(), which is invoked when
debug_object_assert_init() can't find a shadow object. In that case debug
objects emits a warning about it before invoking the fixup.

Though the provided console log lacks this warning and instead has the
following a few seconds before the splat:

     ODEBUG: Out of memory. ODEBUG disabled

So the object was looked up in debug_object_assert_init() and the lookup
failed due a concurrent out of memory situation which disabled debug
objects and freed the shadow objects:

debug_object_assert_init()
        if (!debug_objects_enabled)
        	return;                         obj = alloc();
                				if (!obj) {
							// Out of memory
                                                	debug_objects_enabled = false;
                                                        free_objects();
        obj = lookup_or_alloc();

        // The lookup failed because the other side
        // removed the objects, so this returns
        // an error code as the object in question
        // is not statically initialized

	if (!IS_ERR_OR_NULL(obj))
        	return;
        if (!obj) {
        	debug_oom();
                return;
        }

        print(...)
           if (!debug_objects_enabled)
                return;

        fixup(...)

The debug object splat is skipped because debug_objects_enabled is false,
but the fixup callback is invoked unconditionally, which makes the timer
disfunctional.

This is only a problem in debug_object_assert_init() and
debug_object_activate() as both have to handle statically initialized
objects and therefore must handle the error pointer return case
gracefully. All other places only handle the found/not found case and the
NULL pointer return is a signal for OOM. Otherwise they get a valid shadow
object.

Plug the hole by checking whether debug objects are still enabled before
invoking the print and fixup function in those two places.