Bug 2535200 (CVE-2026-89956)

Summary: CVE-2026-89956 kernel: s390/vfio-ap: Fix missing lock required to access list of ap_matrix_mdev objects
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security <prodsec-ir-bot>
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 s390/vfio-ap component. Two functions, vfio_ap_mdev_probe and vfio_ap_mdev_for_queue, access a list of ap_matrix_mdev objects without holding the required mutex. This concurrency issue could allow an attacker to cause kernel memory corruption or a use-after-free condition, potentially leading to system instability or denial of service.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-09-16 11:25:40 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

s390/vfio-ap: Fix missing lock required to access list of ap_matrix_mdev objects

In order to traverse or add/remove ap_matrix_mdev objects in the
matrix_dev->mdev_list, the matrix_dev->guests_lock mutex must be held.
There are two functions that access the list without holding the mutex:

vfio_ap_mdev_probe function
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The vfio_ap_mdev_probe function uses the matrix_dev->mdevs_lock
mutex to guard the add of a newly created ap_matrix_mdev object to the
matrix_dev->mdev_list. This mutex does not protect list access; its purpose
is to guard against concurrent access to fields contained in an
ap_matrix_mdev object. This could lead to kernel memory corruption or
use-after-free if another mdev is created or removed concurrently.

The adding of an ap_matrix_mdev object to matrix_dev->mdev_list
is now guarded by the matrix_dev->guests_lock which is the correct
way to protect against concurrent mdev_list access.

Also removed the following two lines of code because the matrix_mdev is
allocated via vfio_alloc_device macro which uses kzalloc, so req_trigger
and cfg_chg_trigger are already zero-initialised when the struct is
allocated before the call to vfio_register_emulated_iommu_dev. This
prevents a window whereby these triggers are set to NULL after
the device is exposed to userspace.

matrix_mdev->req_trigger = NULL;
matrix_mdev->cfg_chg_trigger = NULL;

vfio_ap_mdev_for_queue function
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The status_show function that supports display of the status attribute of
the devices in /sys/bus/ap/devices calls the vfio_ap_mdev_for_queue
function which iterates the matrix_dev->mdev_list to find the object
representing the queue device whose status is to be displayed. In order to
traverse this list, the matrix_dev->guests_lock mutex must be held.

To fix this, the guests_lock mutex is taken prior to taking the
matrix_dev->mdevs_lock mutex in the status_show function. It is taken
there rather than the vfio_ap_mdev_for_queue function - where it is
needed - because it must be taken prior to the mdevs_lock mutex in order to
adhere to the proper locking order and prevent a lockdep splat; also
because the mdevs_lock is needed there to access fields within
the matrix_mdev object in that function.

See the vfio-ap-locking.rst in the linux kernel tree.