Bug 2516235 (CVE-2026-72042)

Summary:	CVE-2026-72042 kernel: ipmi: Fix user refcount underflow in event delivery
Product:	[Other] Security Response	Reporter:	OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component:	vulnerability	Assignee:	Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status:	NEW ---	QA Contact:
Severity:	high	Docs Contact:
Priority:	high
Version:	unspecified	CC:	rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	Security
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	---
Doc Text:	A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) subsystem. An issue in the event delivery mechanism, specifically a reference count underflow, can lead to a use-after-free vulnerability. This occurs when a user's reference count is prematurely decremented during event delivery rollback, allowing for the potential dereferencing of freed memory. This could result in system instability or a denial of service.	Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:		Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-15 06:01:55 UTC

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ipmi: Fix user refcount underflow in event delivery

ipmi_alloc_recv_msg(user) takes the temporary user reference owned by the
receive message, and ipmi_free_recv_msg() drops it again. If event delivery
fails after allocating receive messages for earlier users,
handle_read_event_rsp() rolls those messages back with
ipmi_free_recv_msg().

That rollback path still drops user->refcount explicitly after freeing each
message. The extra put can free a user that remains linked on intf->users,
so later event delivery may dereference a freed user or trip refcount_t's
addition-on-zero warning when ipmi_alloc_recv_msg() tries to acquire
another reference.

Remove the stale explicit put and the now-dead user assignment. Keep the
list_del() and ipmi_free_recv_msg() calls; they are the required rollback
operations.

Comment 1 gkamathe 2026-08-17 10:59:42 UTC

Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2026081513-CVE-2026-72042-3b9c@gregkh/T