Bug 2555215 (CVE-2026-98843)

Summary: CVE-2026-98843 kernel: netfs: zero gaps in read-gaps folio to avoid writing back stale data
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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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: ---
Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Network Filesystem (netfs) subsystem. When reading data gaps around modified memory regions during streaming write operations, truncated or incomplete read responses from a remote server fail to clear unread memory buffers. As a result, stale memory contents can subsequently be written back to the file server, potentially leading to data corruption or the exposure of sensitive residual data.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-18 16:02:25 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

netfs: zero gaps in read-gaps folio to avoid writing back stale data

netfs_read_gaps() leaves gaps around a streaming write's dirty region
unread on the server side, so a short/EOF response there left stale
folio content that later got written back.

Zero it after the read completes, not before: netfs_wait_for_read()
returns rreq->transferred once ret >= 0, so build an iterator over the
same bvec array the read used, advance past ret, and zero the rest.
The dirty region already maps to sink pages in that array rather than
the real folio, so this can't touch it, and only the actual shortfall
gets zeroed instead of the whole gap upfront.