Bug 2536628 (CVE-2026-90183)

Summary: CVE-2026-90183 kernel: blk-iolatency: clear delay state when freeing policy data
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security <prodsec-ir-bot>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: low Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
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 blk-iolatency controller. This vulnerability occurs when the I/O latency controller incorrectly handles the clearing of delay states for I/O groups, particularly when a group without a specific latency target is throttled. This oversight can lead to a situation where I/O operations for tasks within an affected control group (cgroup) are persistently throttled, significantly degrading system performance and potentially causing a Denial of Service (DoS).
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-09-17 18:56:50 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

blk-iolatency: clear delay state when freeing policy data

io.latency can throttle a group which has no latency target of its own.
When a sibling misses its target, check_scale_change() scales down its
peers, and a peer that reaches queue depth one gets blkcg_use_delay()
called on it on every further scale-down, even with min_lat_nsec == 0.

iolatency_pd_offline() resets the target through
iolatency_set_min_lat_nsec(), which clears the delay only on a nonzero
to zero transition, so it never clears such a peer.  Freeing the policy
data then leaves blkg->use_delay set and blkcg->congestion_count
elevated with nothing left that can drop it.

blk_cgroup_congested() then returns true for every task in that cgroup
and its descendants for as long as the cgroup lives: page_cache_sync_ra()
cuts readahead to a single page, page_cache_async_ra() skips it
altogether, and __folio_throttle_swaprate() takes swap_avail_lock and
schedules a throttle on anonymous folio allocation.

Clear the delay in iolatency_pd_free().  By then bio-held blkg
references have drained, or the queue is frozen for policy
deactivation, so check_scale_change() cannot re-arm it.  The free
callback can also see policy data which was never attached to a blkg,
hence the pd->blkg check.