Bug 2562667 (CVE-2026-99172)

Summary: CVE-2026-99172 kernel: ipc: drop the mqueue mount with kern_unmount() on setup failure
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 inter-process communication (IPC) subsystem. When initialization of an IPC namespace fails during setup, internal message queue mounts are not properly released, causing kernel memory and resources to leak. A local user could exploit this flaw by repeatedly triggering namespace creation failures, leading to system resource exhaustion 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 2026-10-28 10:46:41 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ipc: drop the mqueue mount with kern_unmount() on setup failure

mq_init_ns() creates the mqueue mount with fc_mount_longterm(), so its
->mnt_ns is MNT_NS_INTERNAL. When setting up the mqueue or ipc sysctls
or msg_init_ns() fails afterwards, create_ipc_ns() drops it with a plain
mntput(). With ->mnt_ns set that takes the fast path of
mntput_no_expire(). The count drops to zero and nothing ever kills the
mount, so the mount and the mqueue superblock are leaked.

Commit dc55e35f9e81 ("ipc: Store mqueue sysctls in the ipc namespace")
added the first failure path after mq_init_ns() and never dropped the
mount. Commit 7229d74e5e8c ("ipc: create_ipc_ns: drop mqueue mount on
sysctl setup failure") tried to fix that with a mntput() but that
doesn't help for a long-term mount.

Use kern_unmount(). free_ipc() open-codes the same thing for a namespace
that made it.