Bug 2555198 (CVE-2026-98864)

Summary: CVE-2026-98864 kernel: sched_ext: Wait for SCX_OPSS_DISPATCHING before reenqueueing a task
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's extensible scheduler (sched_ext) subsystem. A race condition occurs when a task is re-enqueued before a prior dispatch operation has completed, allowing internal scheduling states to be improperly overwritten. A local user could trigger this flaw to cause subsequent task dispatches to be dropped, leading to stalled processes and a denial of service (DoS).
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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 16:01:26 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

sched_ext: Wait for SCX_OPSS_DISPATCHING before reenqueueing a task

ebf1ccff79c4 ("sched_ext: Fix ops.dequeue() semantics") moved the final
ops_state store in scx_dispatch_enqueue() after the DSQ unlock so that the
custody update and ops.dequeue() precede it. A task can thus be found on a
DSQ while still SCX_OPSS_DISPATCHING.

The dequeue and core-sched pick paths wait for the state to clear in
ops_dequeue() but the reenqueue paths don't. A reenqueue in that window runs
ops.enqueue() and sets SCX_OPSS_QUEUED before the dispatch has completed.
The dispatcher's final store then overwrites it with SCX_OPSS_NONE and
finish_dispatch() drops every later dispatch of the task.

Wait for SCX_OPSS_DISPATCHING to clear before dequeueing a task for
reenqueue, the same way ops_dequeue() does.