Bug 2541314 (CVE-2026-97993)

Summary: CVE-2026-97993 kernel: vhost-vdpa: don't install the eventfd_ctx_fdget() error in config_ctx
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
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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Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's vhost-vdpa subsystem. A local attacker can cause a Denial of Service (DoS) by exploiting a race condition when updating interrupt configurations with an invalid file descriptor. Because the kernel temporarily installs an unvalidated error pointer into the device context, a concurrent interrupt can trigger an invalid pointer dereference and crash the system.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-09-25 11:18:37 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

vhost-vdpa: don't install the eventfd_ctx_fdget() error in config_ctx

vhost_vdpa_set_config_call() swaps the eventfd_ctx_fdget() return value
into v->config_ctx before checking it, so on failure the field briefly
holds an ERR_PTR:

	ctx = fd == VHOST_FILE_UNBIND ? NULL : eventfd_ctx_fdget(fd);
	swap(ctx, v->config_ctx);

	if (!IS_ERR_OR_NULL(ctx))
		eventfd_ctx_put(ctx);

	if (IS_ERR(v->config_ctx)) {
		long ret = PTR_ERR(v->config_ctx);

		v->config_ctx = NULL;
		return ret;
	}

Commit 0bde59c1723a ("vhost-vdpa: set v->config_ctx to NULL if
eventfd_ctx_fdget() fails") added that clearing, and spelled out the
invariant the rest of the file relies on: "we consider 'v->config_ctx'
valid if it is not NULL".  The window between the swap and the clearing
still breaks it.  vhost_vdpa_config_cb() only tests for NULL, so a config
interrupt delivered inside the window hands the ERR_PTR to
eventfd_signal().

Check the fd before installing it instead.  That closes the window and
matches how vhost_vring_ioctl() handles the same failure for the vq call
fd.

It also stops a rejected fd from tearing down a config interrupt that was
working: until now the swap replaced the live context and put it, so
after an EBADF the device silently stopped delivering config interrupts
until userspace installed a new fd.