Bug 2516311 (CVE-2026-72023)

Summary: CVE-2026-72023 kernel: octeontx2-pf: fix SQB pointer leak on init failure
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
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's `octeontx2-pf` driver. During the initialization of hardware resources, a memory leak occurs where certain pointer arrays are not properly freed upon failure. This issue could lead to resource exhaustion, potentially resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) for the system.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-15 06:05:50 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

octeontx2-pf: fix SQB pointer leak on init failure

otx2_init_hw_resources() initializes SQ aura and pool resources before
several later setup steps. On failure, err_free_sq_ptrs only frees SQB
pages, leaving the per-SQ sqb_ptrs arrays behind.

Use otx2_free_sq_res() for the SQ unwind path and let it free sqb_ptrs
even when sq->sqe has not been allocated yet.

The bug was first flagged by an experimental analysis tool we are
developing for kernel memory-management bugs while analyzing
v6.13-rc1. The tool is still under development and is not yet publicly
available. Manual inspection confirms that the bug is still
present in v7.1.1.

An x86_64 allyesconfig build showed no new warnings. As we do not have an
OcteonTX2 PF device and the corresponding AF mailbox setup to test with,
no runtime testing was able to be performed.