Bug 2559663 (CVE-2026-98942)

Summary: CVE-2026-98942 kernel: kernel: Information disclosure via race condition in sched_ext
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 sched_ext (extensible scheduler) subsystem. Due to a race condition, internal core-ID mapping tables were exposed before being fully initialized and were modified without adequate synchronization. A local attacker could exploit this timing issue during scheduler updates to read uninitialized kernel memory or inconsistent state, potentially leading to kernel information disclosure or 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 2026-10-23 12:56:13 UTC 
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

sched_ext: Build the cid tables privately and publish them with RCU

The cid tables are visible to the cid kfuncs while being modified: the
first enable publishes the global pointers before filling them,
ops.init_cids() overrides rewrite them in place, and re-enables rebuild
them in place. A racing TRACING or SYSCALL program can read unfilled
entries, including uninitialized memory in the kmalloc'd tables, or torn
topo updates.

Tie the tables' lifetimes to the root sched instead: each root enable
builds a fresh set privately and publishes the per-table __rcu globals once
the layout is final, and root disable unpublishes and RCU-frees the set. A
non-NULL global is now always a fully built table which stays valid for the
reader's RCU read section, and lookups stay two loads. Kfuncs treat NULL as
no-mapping, also after the scheduler exits instead of reporting the stale
last mapping.

The cid kfuncs are available whether the root scheduler is cid-form or
cpu-form, the latter to allow gradual migration to cids. Every root
therefore builds and publishes a default mapping.

Every reader must either be gated on scheduler liveness or NULL-check
inside an RCU read section. Fix the two kfuncs that were neither:
scx_bpf_this_cid() read the table with no RCU or preemption protection and
scx_bpf_task_cid() relied on KF_RCU, which doesn't put a sleepable program
in an RCU read section. The hotplug callbacks are instead serialized by
retiring the tables inside the cpus_read_lock() section that clears
scx_root.

v2: Document why every root builds the tables (desc + cid.c comment).