CVE-2026-43292

About vulnerability

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

mm/vmalloc: prevent RCU stalls in kasan_release_vmalloc_node

When CONFIG_PAGE_OWNER is enabled, freeing KASAN shadow pages during vmalloc cleanup triggers expensive stack unwinding that acquires RCU read locks. Processing a large purge_list without rescheduling can cause the task to hold CPU for extended periods (10+ seconds), leading to RCU stalls and potential OOM conditions.

The issue manifests in purge_vmap_node() -> kasan_release_vmalloc_node() where iterating through hundreds or thousands of vmap_area entries and freeing their associated shadow pages causes:

rcu: INFO: rcu_preempt detected stalls on CPUs/tasks: rcu: Tasks blocked on level-0 rcu_node (CPUs 0-1): P6229/1:b..l … task:kworker/0:17 state:R running task stack:28840 pid:6229 … kasan_release_vmalloc_node+0x1ba/0xad0 mm/vmalloc.c:2299 purge_vmap_node+0x1ba/0xad0 mm/vmalloc.c:2299

Each call to kasan_release_vmalloc() can free many pages, and with page_owner tracking, each free triggers save_stack() which performs stack unwinding under RCU read lock. Without yielding, this creates an unbounded RCU critical section.

Add periodic cond_resched() calls within the loop to allow:

• RCU grace periods to complete
• Other tasks to run
• Scheduler to preempt when needed

The fix uses need_resched() for immediate response under load, with a batch count of 32 as a guaranteed upper bound to prevent worst-case stalls even under light load.

Affected product:

AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU , CentOS 7 ELS , CentOS 8.4 ELS , CentOS 8.5 ELS , CentOS Stream 8 ELS , RHEL 7 ELS , TuxCare 9.6 ESU

Affected packages:

kernel @ 4.18.0 (+6 more)

Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.