Bug 2562656 (CVE-2026-99140)

Summary: CVE-2026-99140 kernel: kernel: Denial of Service via race condition in tracing subsystem
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: low Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
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 tracing subsystem. A local user with access to the tracing interface can cause a Denial of Service (DoS) due to a race condition when attaching histogram triggers to filtered events. Under specific timing conditions, buffered trace events are processed without expected reservation tracking, triggering an internal kernel warning that can halt the system if configured to panic on warnings, as well as produce inaccurate timestamps.
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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 2026-10-28 10:44:39 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

tracing: Fix hist trigger timestamps for buffered events

Syzkaller triggered a WARN_ON_ONCE(!nest) warning:

  WARNING: kernel/trace/ring_buffer.c:821 at ring_buffer_event_time_stamp
  Call trace:
    ring_buffer_event_time_stamp
    hist_field_timestamp
    hist_fn_call
    event_hist_trigger
    event_triggers_call
    __event_trigger_test_discard
    trace_event_buffer_commit
    do_trace_event_raw_event_sched_switch
    trace_event_raw_event_sched_switch

The warning is probabilistically reproducible and is related to syzkaller
executing the following commands:

  echo 'prev_pid == 999999' > events/sched/sched_switch/filter
  echo 'hist:keys=common_timestamp' > events/sched/sched_switch/trigger

The specific triggering process is as follows:

CPU 0                                           CPU 1
(context switching)                             (echo 'hist:keys=common_timestamp' > \
                                                        events/sched/sched_switch/trigger)
do_trace_event_raw_event_##call
  trace_event_buffer_lock_reserve
    if (!tr->no_filter_buffering_ref &&
        trace_file->flags & EVENT_FILE_FL_FILTERED)
        return entry;  // return directly
                                                event_hist_trigger_parse
                                                  hist_register_trigger
                                                    tracing_set_filter_buffering(file->tr, true);
                                                      tr->no_filter_buffering_ref++;
    __trace_buffer_lock_reserve
      rb_start_commit
        local_inc(&cpu_buffer->committing);  // skipped and not executed
  trace_event_buffer_commit
    __event_trigger_test_discard
      event_triggers_call
        event_hist_trigger
          hist_fn_call
            hist_field_timestamp
              ring_buffer_event_time_stamp
                nest = local_read(&cpu_buffer->committing);
                WARN_ON_ONCE(!nest)  // trigger warning

The root cause is that when an event file has a filter attached and the
hist trigger has not yet been attached, trace_event_buffer_lock_reserve()
writes the event into the per-CPU trace_buffered_event temp buffer instead
of reserving it in the ring buffer, so cpu_buffer->committing is not
incremented. When the event is later processed at commit time by a hist
trigger, hist_field_timestamp() -> ring_buffer_event_time_stamp() sees a
zero committing count, triggering WARN_ON_ONCE(!nest).

tracing_event_time_stamp() was added by commit d8279bfc5e959 ("tracing:
Add tracing_event_time_stamp() API") for exactly this case: if the event
is the per-CPU trace_buffered_event, it returns the current ring buffer
timestamp. But it never gained a caller. Use it in hist_field_timestamp(),
so that a hist trigger that races onto a buffered event records the
current time, which is only marginally later than when the event was
recorded, instead of warning and recording a bogus timestamp.