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Fencer Vulns
medium 4.7

CVE-2026-43439 json

cgroup: fix race between task migration and iteration

published 2026-05-08 6 mo ago modified 2026-11-06 3 d ago also EUVD-2026-28745

cvss
4.7
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.1%
EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 0%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

cgroup: fix race between task migration and iteration

When a task is migrated out of a css_set, cgroup_migrate_add_task() first moves it from cset->tasks to cset->mg_tasks via:

list_move_tail(&task->cg_list, &cset->mg_tasks);

If a css_task_iter currently has it->task_pos pointing to this task, css_set_move_task() calls css_task_iter_skip() to keep the iterator valid. However, since the task has already been moved to ->mg_tasks, the iterator is advanced relative to the mg_tasks list instead of the original tasks list. As a result, remaining tasks on cset->tasks, as well as tasks queued on cset->mg_tasks, can be skipped by iteration.

Fix this by calling css_set_skip_task_iters() before unlinking task->cg_list from cset->tasks. This advances all active iterators to the next task on cset->tasks, so iteration continues correctly even when a task is concurrently being migrated.

This race is hard to hit in practice without instrumentation, but it can be reproduced by artificially slowing down cgroup_procs_show(). For example, on an Android device a temporary /sys/kernel/cgroup/cgroup_test knob can be added to inject a delay into cgroup_procs_show(), and then:

1) Spawn three long-running tasks (PIDs 101, 102, 103). 2) Create a test cgroup and move the tasks into it. 3) Enable a large delay via /sys/kernel/cgroup/cgroup_test. 4) In one shell, read cgroup.procs from the test cgroup. 5) Within the delay window, in another shell migrate PID 102 by writing it to a different cgroup.procs file.

Under this setup, cgroup.procs can intermittently show only PID 101 while skipping PID 103. Once the migration completes, reading the file again shows all tasks as expected.

Note that this change does not allow removing the existing css_set_skip_task_iters() call in css_set_move_task(). The new call in cgroup_migrate_add_task() only handles iterators that are racing with migration while the task is still on cset->tasks. Iterators may also start after the task has been moved to cset->mg_tasks. If we dropped css_set_skip_task_iters() from css_set_move_task(), such iterators could keep task_pos pointing to a migrating task, causing css_task_iter_advance() to malfunction on the destination css_set, up to and including crashes or infinite loops.

The race window between migration and iteration is very small, and css_task_iter is not on a hot path. In the worst case, when an iterator is positioned on the first thread of the migrating process, cgroup_migrate_add_task() may have to skip multiple tasks via css_set_skip_task_iters(). However, this only happens when migration and iteration actually race, so the performance impact is negligible compared to the correctness fix provided here.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 4.15, 4.20, 5.10.253, 5.15.203, 6.1.167, 6.6.130, 6.12.78, 6.18.19, 6.19.9, 7.0
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.170-1
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.85-1
  • linux Debian 14 6.19.10-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-43439

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-186.196
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-136.136
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1112.119
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1061.64
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1112.122
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1064.72
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1108.114
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1059.67

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-43439

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel-rt Linux Micro 6.2 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • kernel-64kb SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • kernel-source SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • kernel-default SLES 16.0, SLE High Availability Extension 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2 +1 more 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1.160000.2.23
  • kernel-syms SLES 16.0, Linux Micro Extras 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • kernel-azure SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • kernel-obs-qa SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:23887-1SUSE-SU-2026:23902-1SUSE-SU-2026:23897-1SUSE-SU-2026:23881-1SUSE-SU-2026:3810-1SUSE-SU-2026:3790-1

  • kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • kernel-azure openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • kernel-source openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • kernel-default openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:21910-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-43439 updated cvss 3.6

kernel: cgroup: fix race between task migration and iteration

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    affected: no fix available, no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
3 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.09% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 0% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 4.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-362 Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.