Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
no cvss —

CVE-2026-72341 json

net/mlx5e: Fix publication race for priv->channel_stats[]

published 2026-08-15 2 mo ago modified 2026-10-30 10 d ago also EUVD-2026-59240

cvss
—
not scored
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 12%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

net/mlx5e: Fix publication race for priv->channel_stats[]

mlx5e_channel_stats_alloc() publishes a new entry to priv->channel_stats[] and then increments priv->stats_nch as a publication token, but neither store carries any memory barrier:

priv->channel_stats[ix] = kvzalloc_node(...); if (!priv->channel_stats[ix]) return -ENOMEM; priv->stats_nch++;

Concurrent readers compute the loop bound from priv->stats_nch and then dereference priv->channel_stats[i] using plain accesses, e.g.

for (i = 0; i < priv->stats_nch; i++) { struct mlx5e_channel_stats *cs = priv->channel_stats[i]; ... cs->rq.packets ... }

On weakly-ordered architectures (ARM, PowerPC, RISC-V) the writes to channel_stats[ix] and stats_nch may become visible to other CPUs out of program order. A reader can observe stats_nch == N while still seeing channel_stats[N-1] == NULL, leading to a NULL pointer dereference in the channel_stats loop.

This has been observed in production on BlueField-3 DPUs (arm64), where ovs-vswitchd queries netdev statistics over netlink during NIC bringup, racing mlx5e_open_channel() -> mlx5e_channel_stats_alloc() on another CPU:

Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 0x840 Hardware name: BlueField-3 DPU pc : mlx5e_fold_sw_stats64+0x30/0x180 [mlx5_core] Call trace: mlx5e_fold_sw_stats64+0x30/0x180 [mlx5_core] dev_get_stats+0x50/0xc0 ovs_vport_get_stats+0x38/0xac [openvswitch] ovs_vport_cmd_fill_info+0x194/0x290 [openvswitch] ovs_vport_cmd_get+0xbc/0x10c [openvswitch] genl_family_rcv_msg_doit+0xd0/0x160 genl_rcv_msg+0xec/0x1f0 netlink_rcv_skb+0x64/0x130 genl_rcv+0x40/0x60 netlink_unicast+0x2fc/0x370 netlink_sendmsg+0x1dc/0x454 ... __arm64_sys_sendmsg+0x2c/0x40

Add mlx5e_stats_nch_write() and mlx5e_stats_nch_read() helpers in en.h that wrap the smp_store_release()/smp_load_acquire() pair on stats_nch. The release/acquire pair establishes the contract:

stats_nch == N => channel_stats[0..N-1] are visible and non-NULL.

Publish the stats_nch increment via mlx5e_stats_nch_write() in the writer (mlx5e_channel_stats_alloc()), and read stats_nch via mlx5e_stats_nch_read() in all readers: mlx5e RX/TX queue stats, mlx5e_get_base_stats(), ethtool channels stats, IPoIB stats, the sw_stats fold and the HV VHCA stats agent.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.1.191, 6.6.160, 6.12.114, 6.18.40, 7.1.5, 7.2
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.115-2
  • linux Debian 14 7.1.5-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-72341

  • linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-38.38
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1014.14
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1014.14
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1008.9
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1015.15
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1017.17
  • linux-riscv Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-38.38.1
  • linux-oracle Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1013.13

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-72341

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-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.81.1
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.81.1
  • kernel-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.81.1
  • kernel-source SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.81.1
  • kernel-default SLE Workstation Extension 15 SP7, SLE Module for Legacy 15 SP7, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 +2 more 6.4.0-150700.53.81.1
  • kernel-zfcpdump SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.81.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.81.1
  • kernel-default-base SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.81.1.150700.17.45.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:4254-1SUSE-SU-2026:23887-1SUSE-SU-2026:23902-1SUSE-SU-2026:23897-1SUSE-SU-2026:23881-1SUSE-SU-2026:4120-1

  • 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

  • kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.161.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-96174

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

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-2026-72341 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: net/mlx5e: Fix publication race for priv->channel_stats[]

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • 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

Exploit prediction

0.22% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 12% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

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.