CVE-2026-23215

Published Feb 18, 2026

Last updated 7 months ago

Overview

Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/vmware: Fix hypercall clobbers Fedora QA reported the following panic: BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: 0000000040003e54 #PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS edk2-20251119-3.fc43 11/19/2025 RIP: 0010:vmware_hypercall4.constprop.0+0x52/0x90 .. Call Trace: vmmouse_report_events+0x13e/0x1b0 psmouse_handle_byte+0x15/0x60 ps2_interrupt+0x8a/0xd0 ... because the QEMU VMware mouse emulation is buggy, and clears the top 32 bits of %rdi that the kernel kept a pointer in. The QEMU vmmouse driver saves and restores the register state in a "uint32_t data[6];" and as a result restores the state with the high bits all cleared. RDI originally contained the value of a valid kernel stack address (0xff5eeb3240003e54). After the vmware hypercall it now contains 0x40003e54, and we get a page fault as a result when it is dereferenced. The proper fix would be in QEMU, but this works around the issue in the kernel to keep old setups working, when old kernels had not happened to keep any state in %rdi over the hypercall. In theory this same issue exists for all the hypercalls in the vmmouse driver; in practice it has only been seen with vmware_hypercall3() and vmware_hypercall4(). For now, just mark RDI/RSI as clobbered for those two calls. This should have a minimal effect on code generation overall as it should be rare for the compiler to want to make RDI/RSI live across hypercalls.
Source
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
NVD status
Analyzed
Products
linux_kernel

Risk scores

CVSS 3.1

Type
Primary
Base score
5.5
Impact score
3.6
Exploitability score
1.8
Vector string
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Severity
MEDIUM

Weaknesses

nvd@nist.gov
NVD-CWE-noinfo

Social media

Hype score
Not currently trending

Configurations

  1. In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: cgroup: Avoid iteration of dying tasks with zero refcount The commit 260fbcb92bbea ("cgroup: Move dying_tasks cleanup from cgroup_task_release() to cgroup_task_free()") extended the lifetime of tasks on the dying_tasks list. The iterators have provision to go through dying_tasks because of dying threadgroup leaders or explicit CSS_TASK_ITER_WITH_DEAD, however, it was expected that such tasks can obtain a new reference (that is possible before cgroup_task_release()/put_task_struct_rcu_user()). The tasks after cgroup_task_release() and before cgroup_task_free() are subject to race when they may or may not have ->usage count > 0. The race window is between css_task_iter_next() invocations when css_set_lock is released and we may arrive at a new ->task_pos. The iterator should not attempt to resurrect tasks whose ->usage count dropped to zero. (When that happens, __put_task_struct_rcu_cb() is already imminent and the returned task_struct would could be used after free.) As for the fix, we cannot simply check the signal->live count of a task on the dying list because that won't distinguish regular zombies waiting to be reaped from RCU remnant tasks that are going to be free'd. Therefore add an extra check to rule out ->usage==0 tasks from any iteration. The repeat: loop in css_task_iter_advance() doesn't consider ->usage count, so add a new loop to css_task_iter_next() to skip de-used tasks on the dying_list. Rough illustration of the possible race R (reader of cgroup.procs) T (thread) L (group leader) --------------------------------- -------------------------------- -------------------------------- L exits, signal->live > 0 cgroup_task_dead(L) css_set_skip_task_iters() // skips only cset->tasks list_add_tail(&L->cg_list, &cset->dying_tasks) css_task_iter_next() take css_set_lock css_task_iter_advance() leader && signal->live != 0 => it->task_pos = &L->cg_list release css_set_lock T exits --signal->live == 0 cgroup_task_dead(T) // css_set_lock release_task(T) cgroup_task_release(T) release_task(L) // zap_leader cgroup_task_release(L) put_task_struct_rcu_user(L) ...RCU... put_task_struct(L) L->usage = 0 /* L still on dying_tasks */ ...RCU... __put_task_struct(L) css_task_iter_next() // another iteration take css_set_lock it->task_pos = &L->cg_list get_task_struct(L) => addition on 0 drop css_set_lock cgroup_task_free(L) css_set_skip_task_iters() // dying skip comes too late free_task(L) cgroup_procs_show() task_pid_vnr(L)•CVE-2026-98163