Bug 2554949 (CVE-2026-98543)

Summary: CVE-2026-98543 kernel: bpf: fs/xattr: don't assume the inode is locked in path_unlink/path_rmdir
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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Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel. A local privileged user could cause a Denial of Service (DoS) or file system corruption due to improper locking in the BPF (Berkeley Packet Filter) subsystem. When attaching sleepable BPF programs to certain file removal hooks, the kernel verifier incorrectly assumes an inode lock is held, permitting extended attributes to be modified concurrently without synchronization.
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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 2026-10-18 15:34:50 UTC 
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

bpf: fs/xattr: don't assume the inode is locked in path_unlink/path_rmdir

bpf_lsm_has_d_inode_locked() makes the verifier rewrite
bpf_[set|remove]_dentry_xattr() to the _locked variants, which assume
that the caller already holds the inode's i_rwsem.  The path_unlink and
path_rmdir hooks are listed, but security_path_unlink() and
security_path_rmdir() run before vfs_unlink()/vfs_rmdir() take the
victim inode's i_rwsem, so a sleepable BPF LSM program attached to
either hook mutates the victim's xattrs without the lock held.

Drop the two path hooks from d_inode_locked_hooks so that the verifier
keeps the locking bpf_[set|remove]_dentry_xattr() variants, which take
the lock themselves.