Skip to main content
← All vulnerabilities
CVE-2026-99103EUVD-2026-112003

workqueue: Fix unbound pool lifetime for pending pwqs

Published
Last modified
published
Not listed in CISA KEV
Fix
Fixed in 6.6.25, 6.8.4, 6.8
None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub

Summary

The Linux kernel's workqueue subsystem is affected, specifically its handling of unbound worker pools. A flaw in cleanup ordering can cause a freed worker pool to be accessed, which can lead to a kernel crash or memory corruption.

Summarized by anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5. Verify details against the original sources.

Read the original description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: workqueue: Fix unbound pool lifetime for pending pwqs KASAN reports a use-after-free of an unbound worker_pool in node_activate_pending_pwq(): BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in _raw_spin_trylock+0x6d/0x120 Read of size 4 at addr ffff8880089ce000 by task kworker/u22:0/318 CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 318 Comm: kworker/u22:0 Not tainted 7.2.0 #1 PREEMPT(lazy) Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.15.0-1 04/01/2014 Workqueue: 0x0 (flush-8:0) Call Trace: <TASK> dump_stack_lvl+0x53/0x70 print_report+0xce/0x610 kasan_report+0xce/0x100 _raw_spin_trylock+0x6d/0x120 pwq_dec_nr_in_flight+0x4b4/0xcb0 process_one_work+0x921/0x11a0 worker_thread+0x4d0/0xd20 kthread+0x2de/0x3c0 ret_from_fork+0x3aa/0x620 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 </TASK> Allocated by task 311: alloc_pwq+0x439/0xca0 apply_wqattrs_prepare+0x75e/0xd10 apply_workqueue_attrs_locked+0x44/0xa0 wq_nice_store+0x350/0x450 Freed by task 0: kfree+0x127/0x3b0 rcu_core+0x523/0x1780 handle_softirqs+0x1b3/0x610 Last potentially related work creation: put_unbound_pool+0x3f3/0x7d0 pwq_release_workfn+0x494/0x8e0 kthread_worker_fn+0x1ff/0x790 Canceling the last inactive work skips pwq_dec_nr_active(), so an empty pwq can remain on pending_pwqs when its refcnt reaches zero. pwq_release_workfn() currently puts the pool before removing that pwq. If this drops the last pool reference, the pool can be RCU-freed while the pwq remains reachable, and node_activate_pending_pwq() may trylock the freed pool->lock. Remove the pwq from pending_pwqs before putting the pool.

Timeline

  1. CVE published
  2. First seen by cve.now

Affected versions

  • Linux Linux

    From 6.6.23 · fixed in 6.6.25; From 6.8.2 · fixed in 6.8.4; From 6.7.11 · fixed in 6.8

  • Linux Linux

    6.9

References 5

git.kernel.org