Bug 2532315 (CVE-2026-81005)

Summary: CVE-2026-81005 kernel: ipmi: si: Fix NULL pointer dereference after failed registration
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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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: ---
Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) subsystem. During the registration of an IPMI message handler, if the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) device information cannot be fetched, a NULL pointer dereference can occur. This can allow a local attacker to trigger a kernel crash, resulting in a denial of service.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-09-11 22:18:52 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ipmi: si: Fix NULL pointer dereference after failed registration

try_smi_init() allocates new_smi->si_sm and later calls
ipmi_register_smi_mod(), which maps to ipmi_add_smi().

During ipmi_add_smi(), the upper IPMI message handler obtains the
initial BMC device information through __bmc_get_device_id(). This can
fail if the BMC does not return a successful response to the Get Device
ID command.

When the BMC returns a nonzero completion code, the device-id helper
retries the command and eventually returns -EIO if the device ID still
cannot be fetched.

On this failure path, ipmi_add_smi() logs "Unable to get the device id"
and goes to out_err_started, where it invokes the lower driver's
shutdown callback. try_smi_init() then logs the returned registration
failure:

 ipmi_si IPI0001:00: IPMI message handler: Unable to get the device id: -5
 ipmi_si IPI0001:00: Unable to register device: error -5

For ipmi_si, the shutdown callback is shutdown_smi(), which cleans up
the SI state machine data, frees smi_info->si_sm, and sets
smi_info->si_sm and smi_info->intf to NULL.

However, intf->in_shutdown is not set on this failed-registration
rollback path. Therefore, the asynchronous redo_bmc_reg work item can
still retry BMC device-id probing after the lower driver has already
cleared its SI state machine data. In the observed case, that retry path
reached start_next_msg(), which passed the NULL smi_info->si_sm pointer
to the selected KCS state machine handler:

BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at 0000000000000000
Workqueue: events redo_bmc_reg [ipmi_msghandler]
RIP: start_kcs_transaction+0x2c/0x190 [ipmi_si]
Call Trace:
 start_next_msg+0x50/0x80 [ipmi_si]
 check_start_timer_thread.part.9+0x3b/0x50 [ipmi_si]
 sender+0x69/0x80 [ipmi_si]
 i_ipmi_request+0x2ac/0x9d0 [ipmi_msghandler]
 __get_device_id.isra.29+0xaa/0x180 [ipmi_msghandler]
 __bmc_get_device_id+0xef/0x950 [ipmi_msghandler]
 redo_bmc_reg+0x52/0x60 [ipmi_msghandler]
 process_one_work+0x1a7/0x360

Set intf->in_shutdown on the out_err_started path before invoking the
lower driver's shutdown callback. This prevents later redo_bmc_reg
retries from using an interface whose lower driver state has been
cleaned up, and applies the same shutdown state to other IPMI interfaces
as well.