Bug 2546380 (CVE-2026-98286)

Summary: CVE-2026-98286 kernel: drop_monitor: use timer_shutdown_sync() to prevent timer rearming during teardown
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 drop_monitor subsystem. A local user can trigger this issue during monitor teardown under memory pressure, where a race condition allows a timer to be re-armed after it has been cancelled. When the module is subsequently unloaded, the active timer executes within freed memory, leading to a use-after-free vulnerability that can cause a Denial of Service (DoS) via a kernel crash.
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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 2026-10-06 09:09:58 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

drop_monitor: use timer_shutdown_sync() to prevent timer rearming during teardown

In drop_monitor teardown paths (net_dm_trace_off_set(),
net_dm_hw_monitor_stop(), and error unwind paths in net_dm_trace_on_set()
and net_dm_hw_monitor_start()), per-CPU timers are stopped using
timer_delete_sync() followed by cancel_work_sync().

However, there is a circular dependency between send_timer and
dm_alert_work:
1) sched_send_work() (timer callback) schedules dm_alert_work.
2) send_dm_alert() / net_dm_hw_summary_work() calls reset_per_cpu_data()
   or net_dm_hw_reset_per_cpu_data().
3) If memory allocation fails under memory pressure in the reset
   function, it re-arms the timer via mod_timer(&data->send_timer, ...).

If dm_alert_work is running concurrently while timer_delete_sync()
executes on another CPU, an allocation failure in the worker will
re-arm the timer after timer_delete_sync() has already returned.
Once cancel_work_sync() completes and module_put() is called, the timer
remains active in the timer wheel. If the module is then unloaded, the
timer will fire and execute sched_send_work() in freed memory,
triggering a kernel panic / use-after-free.

Switch from timer_delete_sync() to timer_shutdown_sync(). This guarantees
that any in-flight timer handler has finished and prevents subsequent
re-arming attempts from running workers from succeeding. When monitoring
is restarted later, timer_setup() is invoked, which cleanly
re-initializes the timer.