Bug 2540349 (CVE-2026-93275) - CVE-2026-93275 kernel: perf/x86/intel/pt: Fix stop/start with no update
Summary: CVE-2026-93275 kernel: perf/x86/intel/pt: Fix stop/start with no update
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-93275
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
low
low
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-09-24 16:23 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-09-28 12:55 UTC (History)
17 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-09-24 16:23:43 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

perf/x86/intel/pt: Fix stop/start with no update

If pt_event_stop() is called without PERF_EF_UPDATE flag, then
perf_aux_output_end() is not called.  A subsequent call to pt_event_start()
will call perf_aux_output_begin() again which violates the rule against
nesting and triggers a WARNING in perf_aux_output_begin().

Originally, pt_event_stop() was never called without PERF_EF_UPDATE,
because the only code paths to do so are from event overflow, and Intel PT
does not do that.

However the introduction of group throttling by commit 9734e25fbf5ae
("perf: Fix the throttle logic for a group") meant that an Intel PT event
could be throttled if it was part of a group.  Throttling calls PMU
 ->stop() / ->start() callbacks without flags.

An example is when AUX area sampling is used. The following commands
hit the issue:

  echo 10000 > /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_max_sample_rate

  perf record -F32000 --aux-sample -e '{intel_pt//u,cycles:u}' \
  -- bash -c 'for i in `seq 1 100000` ; do true ; done'

Use PERF_HES_UPTODATE to track whether perf_aux_output_begin() and
perf_aux_output_end() are balanced.  A cleared PERF_HES_UPTODATE bit
indicates that an AUX output context is still open.

Amend pt_event_start() / pt_event_stop() accordingly so that begin/end
stay balanced:

 - In non-snapshot mode, stop() always closes the buffer (the buffer may
   have run out of space, and that accounting is done by the update), so
   a following start() opens a fresh one as before.

 - In snapshot/overwrite mode, stop() without PERF_EF_UPDATE leaves the
   buffer open so that pt_event_snapshot_aux() can still copy from it,
   and start() then only re-enables tracing instead of calling
   perf_aux_output_begin() again.

Note that pt_event_del() calls pt_event_stop() with PERF_EF_UPDATE flag set
(as is required by the documentation), so a final call to
perf_aux_output_end() is assured.


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