Bug 2540192 (CVE-2026-93208) - CVE-2026-93208 kernel: kasan: fix cache shrink race with CPU hotplug
Summary: CVE-2026-93208 kernel: kasan: fix cache shrink race with CPU hotplug
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-93208
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
low
low
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security DevOps Team
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-09-24 15:22 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-10-20 13:03 UTC (History)
17 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed:
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-09-24 15:22:27 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

kasan: fix cache shrink race with CPU hotplug

kasan_quarantine_remove_cache() first invokes per_cpu_remove_cache() on
all online CPUs.  Each callback moves objects belonging to the cache from
cpu_quarantine to the CPU's shrink_qlist, where they can later be freed
from task context.

kmem_cache_destroy() invokes the quarantine removal path while holding
cpus_read_lock(), but kmem_cache_shrink() does not.  The latter can
therefore race with CPU offlining as follows:

  kmem_cache_shrink()             CPU hotplug
  -------------------             -----------
  on_each_cpu()
    CPU1 moves objects to
    CPU1's shrink_qlist
  on_each_cpu() returns
                                  CPU1 goes offline
                                  kasan_cpu_offline()
                                    drains cpu_quarantine
                                    leaves shrink_qlist untouched
  for_each_online_cpu()
    skips CPU1

The objects left on CPU1's shrink_qlist are not returned to the slab
allocator.  This may prevent kmem_cache_shrink() from releasing slabs that
would otherwise become empty.  If CPU1 remains offline, a later
kmem_cache_destroy() also skips the list and can report that the cache
still contains objects.

An intermittent occurrence was observed with a virtio-9p filesystem.  The
mount and umount commands both returned 0, but the kernel logged the
following during the userspace-triggered teardown:

  [  2994.380134][  T111] BUG 9p-fcall-cache-1 (Tainted: G    B              ): Objects remaining on __kmem_cache_shutdown()
  [  2994.381140][  T111] Object 0xff11000004361118 @offset=4376
  [  2994.381607][  T111] Allocated in p9_fcall_init+0x201/0x400 age=19564 cpu=1 pid=104
  [  2994.382591][  T111]  p9_fcall_init+0x201/0x400
  [  2994.382810][  T111]  p9_tag_alloc+0x12f/0x700
  [  2994.382982][  T111]  p9_client_prepare_req+0x102/0x3e0
  [  2994.383165][  T111]  p9_client_rpc+0x1ab/0xa50
  [  2994.383334][  T111]  p9_client_getattr_dotl+0xb0/0x1a0
  [  2994.383515][  T111]  v9fs_vfs_getattr_dotl+0x115/0x360
  [  2994.383719][  T111]  vfs_getattr_nosec+0x22c/0x3a0
  [  2994.383910][  T111]  vfs_statx+0xd7/0x170
  [  2994.384062][  T111]  vfs_fstatat+0x45/0x80
  [  2994.384215][  T111]  __do_sys_newfstatat+0x84/0xe0
  [  2994.384386][  T111]  do_syscall_64+0x115/0x6a0
  [  2994.384566][  T111]  entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f
  [  2994.399720][  T111] WARNING: mm/slub.c:1244 at __kmem_cache_shutdown+0x363/0x500, CPU#0: busybox/111
  [  2994.405655][  T111] Call Trace:
  [  2994.406325][  T111]  kmem_cache_destroy+0x73/0x1b0
  [  2994.406630][  T111]  p9_client_destroy+0x271/0x3c0
  [  2994.407210][  T111]  v9fs_session_close+0x3c/0x260
  [  2994.407409][  T111]  v9fs_kill_super+0x48/0x90
  [  2994.407584][  T111]  deactivate_locked_super+0xa3/0x160
  [  2994.407778][  T111]  cleanup_mnt+0x1dd/0x3e0

Thus, a successful umount left objects in the 9p fcall cache and prevented
the cache from being destroyed cleanly.

Per-CPU shrink_qlist storage exists for every possible CPU, and each list
is protected by its own raw spinlock.  Iterate over possible CPUs so that
a list populated before its CPU went offline is drained as well.

for_each_possible_cpu() can do more work than for_each_online_cpu(), but
this change only affects CONFIG_KASAN_GENERIC kernels.  The extra work is
limited to cache shrink and cache destruction paths and does not affect
the normal allocation/free fast path.  It adds one raw-spinlock-protected
scan of each possible CPU's shrink list.  These lists are normally empty;
a non-empty list is traversed to remove objects belonging to the cache
being shrunk or destroyed.


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