Bug 2562730 (CVE-2026-99141) - CVE-2026-99141 kernel: kernel: Denial of Service via NULL pointer dereference in tracing subsystem
Summary: CVE-2026-99141 kernel: kernel: Denial of Service via NULL pointer dereference...
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-99141
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: 2026-10-28 10:58 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-10-29 17:13 UTC (History)
17 users (show)

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


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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-28 10:58:47 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

tracing: Fix crash in print_graph_function_event()

tracing_set_tracer() assigns the flags of the newly selected tracer
with:

	tr->current_trace_flags = t->flags ? : t->tracer->flags;

If the new tracer defines neither static flags nor default flags, like
hwlat, irqsoff or wakeup, add_tracer() has no per instance flags copy
for it, and both operands are NULL, so tr->current_trace_flags ends up
being NULL as well.

The ring buffer is not cleared when switching tracers: it is reset
inside tracer_init(), after current_trace_flags was already assigned.
If the buffer still holds function_graph entries of the previous
tracer, printing one of them dereferences the NULL pointer. This was
hit by cat trace during an ftrace stress test:

  BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000
  #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode
  RIP: 0010:print_graph_function_event+0xe/0x20
  Call Trace:
   s_show+0x4d/0x110
   seq_read_iter+0x2d4/0x490
   seq_read+0x130/0x170
   vfs_read+0xb5/0x370
   ksys_read+0x6d/0xe0
   do_syscall_64+0xbc/0x450

The snapshot buffer is not reset at all, so this can be reproduced
without a race:

  echo function_graph > /sys/kernel/tracing/current_tracer
  echo 1 > /sys/kernel/tracing/snapshot
  echo hwlat > /sys/kernel/tracing/current_tracer
  cat /sys/kernel/tracing/snapshot

Rather than teaching every user of tr->current_trace_flags about this
corner case, make sure it is never NULL: when the newly selected
tracer has no flags at all, tracing_set_tracer() falls back to a
static empty no_tracer_flags. run_tracer_selftest() can hit the same
case, so the same fallback is added there too. The existing users
already handle opts == NULL, so these tracers keep behaving as before.


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