Bug 2513422 (CVE-2026-68416) - CVE-2026-68416 kernel: mtd: fix double free and WARN_ON in add_mtd_device() error paths
Summary: CVE-2026-68416 kernel: mtd: fix double free and WARN_ON in add_mtd_device() e...
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-68416
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-08-10 12:36 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-08-11 14:12 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-10 12:36:27 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

mtd: fix double free and WARN_ON in add_mtd_device() error paths

When device_register() or mtd_nvmem_add() fails inside
add_mtd_device() for a partition, the error handling triggers
mtd_release() via put_device() or device_unregister(). mtd_release()
calls release_mtd_partition() which frees the mtd_info structure.
However, callers such as mtd_add_partition() and add_mtd_partitions()
also call free_partition() in their error paths, resulting in a double
free.

Additionally, release_mtd_partition() hits WARN_ON(!list_empty(
&mtd->part.node)) because the partition node is still linked in the
parent's partitions list when the release callback fires from the
add_mtd_device() error path.

Fix this by overriding dev->type and dev->release before put_device()
in the error paths, so that device_release() invokes a no-op function
instead of mtd_release(). For the mtd_nvmem_add() failure case,
device_unregister() is replaced with device_del() to separate the
device removal from the final kobject reference drop, allowing the
override to take effect before put_device() is called.

The callers' error paths (list_del + free_partition) remain the sole
owners of mtd_info lifetime on add_mtd_device() failure, which is the
expected contract.

The normal partition teardown path is not affected: del_mtd_device()
goes through kref_put() -> mtd_device_release() -> device_unregister()
with dev->type still set to &mtd_devtype, so mtd_release() ->
release_mtd_partition() continues to work correctly for the regular
removal case.

Comment 1 Mauro Matteo Cascella 2026-08-11 14:08:01 UTC
Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2026081051-CVE-2026-68416-28e3@gregkh/T


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