Bug 2528574 (CVE-2026-80776)

Summary: CVE-2026-80776 kernel: futex: Fix race in futex_pivot_pending() during private hash resize
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: akhatavk, aos-team-art-private, asdas, dpaolell, jdelft, jupierce, lgarciaa, mbiarnes, ppalepu, ppostler, prdhamdh, rhel-process-autobot, sghai, sidsharm, suppawar, vlaad, 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 futex subsystem. A local attacker could exploit a race condition in the `futex_pivot_pending()` function during a private hash resize operation. This vulnerability allows a malicious task to become indefinitely blocked, leading to a kernel panic and 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:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-09-04 15:35:21 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

futex: Fix race in futex_pivot_pending() during private hash resize

A task performing a custom private hash resize can remain blocked in
uninterruptible sleep indefinitely.  The hung-task detector reports:

  INFO: task futex-resizer:314 blocked for more than 10 seconds.
  task:futex-resizer state:D stack:14824 pid:314 tgid:312 ppid:311

  Call Trace:
   __schedule+0x521/0xf30
   schedule+0x22/0xa0
   futex_hash_allocate+0x3db/0x490
   __do_sys_prctl+0x6f5/0xbd0
   do_syscall_64+0xf9/0x530
   entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f

  Kernel panic - not syncing: hung_task: blocked tasks

futex_pivot_pending() allows the resize request to continue when
either no replacement hash is pending (hash_new == NULL) or the current
hash reference count has reached zero.

After the final-reference wake, another futex task can complete the
pivot between the two observations:

  T1                                  T2

  futex_hash_allocate()
    wait_var_event(mm, ...)
      futex_pivot_pending(mm)
        hash_new != NULL
                                      futex_hash()
                                        futex_ref_get(old) -> false
                                        futex_pivot_hash(mm)
                                          hash_new = NULL
                                          __futex_pivot_hash(mm, new)
                                            rcu_assign_pointer(hash, new)
        fph = rcu_dereference(hash) /* new */
        futex_ref_is_dead(fph) -> false
      schedule()

The pivot changes the state from hash_new != NULL with a dead current
hash to hash_new == NULL with a live current hash.  Because
futex_pivot_pending() reads hash_new and hash without serialization,
the resize task can observe hash_new in the pre-pivot state and hash in
the post-pivot state, causing futex_pivot_pending() to return false even
though the pivot has completed.  The task then goes to sleep after the
wakeup has already been consumed.

Serialize state reads in futex_pivot_pending() using futex_mm_phash::lock.
This guarantees that futex_pivot_pending() observes hash_new and hash
atomically, eliminating the race condition.