Bug 2559698 (CVE-2026-99080)

Summary:	CVE-2026-99080 kernel: fs: Free any excess xarray nodes in clear_inode()
Product:	[Other] Security Response	Reporter:	OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component:	vulnerability	Assignee:	Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status:	NEW ---	QA Contact:
Severity:	low	Docs Contact:
Priority:	low
Version:	unspecified	CC:	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
Whiteboard:
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Doc Text:	A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's file system component. When freeing file index records (inodes), the kernel could fail to release unused internal data tracking nodes (xarray nodes) left behind during memory management operations. A local user could exploit this flaw to cause a persistent kernel memory leak, ultimately leading to a Denial of Service (DoS) through system memory exhaustion.	Story Points:	---
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oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-23 13:17:37 UTC

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

fs: Free any excess xarray nodes in clear_inode()

For many years we've had a hard to hit leak of xarray nodes.  Hugh
documented it well in commit 786b31121a2c.  Recently people and
syzbot have found ways to force it to happen with madvise.  Rather
than fix the leaks where they happen, just call xa_destroy() which
has the side-effect of cycling the i_pages lock.

Comment 1 gkamathe 2026-10-26 13:23:28 UTC

Upstream advisory:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/security/vulns.git/plain/cve/published/2026/CVE-2026-99080.mbox