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no cvss —

CVE-2026-90186 json

null_blk: reject per-device queue resize for shared tag set

published 2026-09-17 52 d ago modified 2026-10-19 21 d ago also EUVD-2026-81779

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 10%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

null_blk: reject per-device queue resize for shared tag set

When shared_tags is enabled, null_setup_tagset() makes the device use the global tag_set, whose driver_data stays NULL. null_map_queues() therefore falls back to the module-wide g_submit_queues/g_poll_queues instead of any per-device value.

Resizing submit_queues or poll_queues via configfs on such a device calls blk_mq_update_nr_hw_queues() on the shared set, shrinking set->nr_hw_queues. __blk_mq_realloc_hw_ctxs() only grows the q->queue_hw_ctx[] allocation, so on shrink it merely exits and NULLs the now-excess hctx slots. null_map_queues(), however, keeps mapping CPUs with the unchanged g_submit_queues/g_poll_queues, so mq_map[] ends up pointing at those NULLed hctx slots. blk_mq_map_swqueue() then dereferences the NULL hctx (hctx->cpumask), crashing the kernel:

[ 460.218374] KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000098-0x000000000000009f] [ 460.219003] CPU: 24 UID: 0 PID: 1492 Comm: sh Not tainted 7.2.0-rc2+ #67 PREEMPT(full) [ 460.219792] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.17.0-4.fc41 04/01/2014 [ 460.220452] RIP: 0010:blk_mq_map_swqueue+0x4db/0x1430 ...... [ 460.228977] Call Trace: [ 460.229175] <TASK> [ 460.229354] blk_mq_update_nr_hw_queues+0xd49/0x11c0 [ 460.229779] ? __pfx_blk_mq_update_nr_hw_queues+0x10/0x10 [ 460.230200] nullb_update_nr_hw_queues+0x1a9/0x370 [null_blk] [ 460.230694] nullb_device_submit_queues_store+0xd9/0x170 [null_blk] [ 460.231190] ? __pfx_nullb_device_submit_queues_store+0x10/0x10 [null_blk] [ 460.231776] ? configfs_write_iter+0x35c/0x4e0 [ 460.232122] configfs_write_iter+0x286/0x4e0 [ 460.232460] vfs_write+0x52d/0xd00 [ 460.232779] ? __x64_sys_openat+0x108/0x1d0 [ 460.233106] ? __pfx_vfs_write+0x10/0x10 [ 460.233413] ? fdget_pos+0x1cf/0x4c0 [ 460.233745] ? fput_close+0x133/0x190 [ 460.234038] ? __pfx_expand_files+0x10/0x10 [ 460.234368] ksys_write+0xfc/0x1d0

Reproducer: modprobe null_blk shared_tags=1 submit_queues=64 poll_queues=1 mkdir /sys/kernel/config/nullb/dev echo 1 > /sys/kernel/config/nullb/dev/power echo 1 > /sys/kernel/config/nullb/dev/submit_queues

A per-device resize of a shared tag set is meaningless anyway, so reject it with -EINVAL in nullb_update_nr_hw_queues() when the device is bound to the global tag_set.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.1.188, 6.6.157, 6.12.110, 6.18.52, 7.2.6, 7.3
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.190-1
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.111-1
  • linux Debian 14 7.2.6-1
  • linux-6.12 Debian 12 6.12.111-1~deb12u1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-90186

  • linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1016.17
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1016.18
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1017.17
  • linux-riscv Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42.1
  • linux-oracle Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1015.16
  • linux-hwe-7.0 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42~24.04.1
  • linux-oem-7.0 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1017.17

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-90186

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-source openSUSE Tumbleweed 7.2.7-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:11880-1

  • kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.157.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-103017

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-2026-90186 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: null_blk: reject per-device queue resize for shared tag set

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9
    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 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8
    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

0.21% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 10% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

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