Bug 2468181 (CVE-2026-43468) - CVE-2026-43468 kernel: net/mlx5: Fix deadlock between devlink lock and esw->wq
Summary: CVE-2026-43468 kernel: net/mlx5: Fix deadlock between devlink lock and esw->wq
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-43468
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security DevOps Team
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-05-08 15:03 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-05-09 01:39 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-05-08 15:03:23 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net/mlx5: Fix deadlock between devlink lock and esw->wq

esw->work_queue executes esw_functions_changed_event_handler ->
esw_vfs_changed_event_handler and acquires the devlink lock.

.eswitch_mode_set (acquires devlink lock in devlink_nl_pre_doit) ->
mlx5_devlink_eswitch_mode_set -> mlx5_eswitch_disable_locked ->
mlx5_eswitch_event_handler_unregister -> flush_workqueue deadlocks
when esw_vfs_changed_event_handler executes.

Fix that by no longer flushing the work to avoid the deadlock, and using
a generation counter to keep track of work relevance. This avoids an old
handler manipulating an esw that has undergone one or more mode changes:
- the counter is incremented in mlx5_eswitch_event_handler_unregister.
- the counter is read and passed to the ephemeral mlx5_host_work struct.
- the work handler takes the devlink lock and bails out if the current
  generation is different than the one it was scheduled to operate on.
- mlx5_eswitch_cleanup does the final draining before destroying the wq.

No longer flushing the workqueue has the side effect of maybe no longer
cancelling pending vport_change_handler work items, but that's ok since
those are disabled elsewhere:
- mlx5_eswitch_disable_locked disables the vport eq notifier.
- mlx5_esw_vport_disable disarms the HW EQ notification and marks
  vport->enabled under state_lock to false to prevent pending vport
  handler from doing anything.
- mlx5_eswitch_cleanup destroys the workqueue and makes sure all events
  are disabled/finished.


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