Bug 2541126 (CVE-2026-97526)

Summary: CVE-2026-97526 kernel: s390/pai: Support CPU hotplug for PMU PAI
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 s390 Processor Activity Instrumentation (PAI) performance monitoring unit. This vulnerability allows a local user to cause a Denial of Service (DoS) by crashing the operating system. When a CPU is dynamically added (hotplugged) during an active performance monitoring session, the kernel fails to allocate necessary per-processor data structures. This issue leads to a null pointer dereference and an immediate kernel panic.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-09-25 10:50:33 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

s390/pai: Support CPU hotplug for PMU PAI

The command 'perf stat -e pai_crypto/CRYPTO_ALL/ -- <command>'
crashes the kernel when CPUs are hotplug added during that run.

Root cause is the missing allocation of per-CPU data structures
for that new CPU. The allocation is dynamic and the first
event that has task context creates such a structure for
each online CPU. This is not sufficient. CPUs may be offline
during event creation and can be set online during the
perf run time. For example commands

 # echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online
 # perf stat -e cycles -i -- stress-ng -t10s --matrix X
 # sleep 1
 # echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online

Currently without a CPU hotplug handler, that new CPU has no
per-CPU data infrastructure. The scheduler runs PMU call back
function pai_add() to install the PMU support for that CPU before
the task is being scheduled on that new CPU.
In pai_add() instructions

    mp = this_cpu_ptr(pai_root[idx].mapptr);
    cpump = mp->mapptr;

return a NULL pointer and the result is a kernel panic as variable
cpump is used inside that function.

Add CPU hotplug support for CPU add and delete and create
the necessary per-CPU data infrastructure during CPU hotplug
add processing. Same for CPU hotplug remove.
This is done when the CPU is offline to ensure the data structures
are available when CPU is made online and tasks are scheduled on it.

[hca.com: fixup error path in pai_init()]