Bug 2535244 (CVE-2026-89996)

Summary: CVE-2026-89996 kernel: dma-buf: dma-heap: don't publish fd before copy_to_user() succeeds
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 dma-buf subsystem. A local attacker can exploit a race condition during the `DMA_HEAP_IOCTL_ALLOC` operation. If the `copy_to_user()` function fails after a file descriptor (fd) has been installed, the fd is leaked for the lifetime of the process. This continuous leaking of file descriptors can lead to resource exhaustion, resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) for the affected system.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-09-16 11:38:55 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

dma-buf: dma-heap: don't publish fd before copy_to_user() succeeds

DMA_HEAP_IOCTL_ALLOC allocates a dma-buf and installs an fd into the
caller's fd table via dma_buf_fd() -> fd_install() before
dma_heap_ioctl() copies the result back to userspace.  If the trailing
copy_to_user() fails, userspace never learns the fd number, but the
fd (and the underlying dma-buf reference) are already visible to
other threads in the same process and are leaked for the lifetime of
the process.

The obvious "close it on the failure path" fix is unsafe: once
fd_install() has run, another thread can already dup() the fd, send
it via SCM_RIGHTS, or close() it and let its number be reused, so a
subsequent close_fd() from the ioctl path can operate on an unrelated
file.  This was pointed out by Christian König on v1 [1].

Restructure the allocation path so that fd_install() is the last,
unfailable step of a successful ioctl:

  1. heap->ops->allocate()      creates the dma_buf.
  2. get_unused_fd_flags()      reserves an fd number in the caller's
                                fd table without publishing it, so
                                no other thread can observe it.
  3. copy_to_user()             delivers the fd number to userspace;
                                on failure the fd is returned with
                                put_unused_fd() and the dma_buf
                                reference is dropped with
                                dma_buf_put(), leaving no user-
                                visible state behind.
  4. dma_buf_fd_install()       publishes the fd and emits the
                                trace_dma_buf_fd tracepoint -- from
                                here on the ioctl cannot fail.

A new dma_buf_fd_install() helper is introduced in dma-buf.c to wrap
fd_install() together with the DMA_BUF_TRACE() call, preserving the
export tracing that dma_buf_fd() provides.  dma_heap_ioctl_allocate()
is refactored to return the struct dma_buf * directly (returning
ERR_PTR on failure) so the caller holds the dmabuf reference across
steps 3 and 4.

The failure at step 3 is easily reachable from userspace: pass a
struct dma_heap_allocation_data that lives in a page whose protection
is flipped to PROT_READ between copy_from_user() and copy_to_user()
(e.g. via mprotect()).  Before this change each such ioctl leaks one
dmabuf fd; after it, the fd table is unchanged on failure and only
/dev/dma_heap/<name> remains open.

No UAPI or heap-driver interface change.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/dri-devel/175e98de-f414-47d7-81c1-c0fe0a8f7f62@amd.com/