Bug 2562670 (CVE-2026-99173)

Summary: CVE-2026-99173 kernel: eventfs: Free the eventfs_inode after an rcu grace period too
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 eventfs subsystem. An improper synchronization issue allows an internal directory structure (eventfs_inode) to be freed while still being accessed during file path validation, leading to a use-after-free condition. A local user could exploit this vulnerability during concurrent file operations to trigger a kernel crash, resulting in a denial of service (DoS).
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-28 10:47:02 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

eventfs: Free the eventfs_inode after an rcu grace period too

tracefs_d_revalidate() reads ->is_freed of the eventfs_inode that
dentry->d_fsdata points to, and ->d_revalidate() is called in rcu
pathwalk mode with nothing but rcu_read_lock() held. The dentry itself
stays around for such a walker, but tracefs_d_release() drops its
reference to the eventfs_inode when the dentry is killed, and
release_ei() then frees it after a grace period of eventfs_srcu. An
SRCU grace period doesn't wait for rcu_read_lock() sections, so the
walker can read an eventfs_inode that is already gone.

With a pathwalk held up in tracefs_d_revalidate() while the dentry goes
away:

  BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in tracefs_d_revalidate+0x76/0x90
  Read of size 1 at addr ff1100010152d8d0 by task walker/97
  Call Trace:
   <TASK>
   tracefs_d_revalidate+0x76/0x90
   lookup_fast+0x320/0x640
   path_lookupat+0x160/0xb00
   filename_lookup+0x1f1/0x5b0
   vfs_statx+0xd7/0x3b0
   vfs_fstatat+0x4d/0x90
   __do_sys_newfstatat+0xa0/0x100
   do_syscall_64+0x10e/0x5e0
   entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f
  [...]
  Allocated by task 1:
   __kmalloc_cache_noprof+0x249/0x560
   eventfs_create_dir+0x7a/0x590
   event_create_dir+0x2fb/0xcf0
   trace_add_event_call+0xbf/0x150
  [...]
  Freed by task 11:
   kfree+0x1db/0x5b0
   srcu_invoke_callbacks+0x3a3/0x620
   process_one_work+0x937/0x1810
   worker_thread+0x4f1/0xd60

Before commit 8e556432477e ("eventfs: Use SRCU for freeing
eventfs_inodes") release_ei() used call_rcu(), which covered the walker,
while eventfs_iterate() needs the SRCU grace period. Wait for both and
chain call_rcu() from the SRCU callback.