CVE-2026-46135

About vulnerability

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

nvmet-tcp: fix race between ICReq handling and queue teardown

nvmet_tcp_handle_icreq() updates queue->state after sending an Initialization Connection Response (ICResp), but it does so without serializing against target-side queue teardown.

If an NVMe/TCP host sends an Initialization Connection Request (ICReq) and immediately closes the connection, target-side teardown may start in softirq context before io_work drains the already buffered ICReq. In that case, nvmet_tcp_schedule_release_queue() sets queue->state to NVMET_TCP_Q_DISCONNECTING and drops the queue reference under state_lock.

If io_work later processes that ICReq, nvmet_tcp_handle_icreq() can still overwrite the state back to NVMET_TCP_Q_LIVE. That defeats the DISCONNECTING-state guard in nvmet_tcp_schedule_release_queue() and allows a later socket state change to re-enter teardown and issue a second kref_put() on an already released queue.

The ICResp send failure path has the same problem. If teardown has already moved the queue to DISCONNECTING, a send error can still overwrite the state with NVMET_TCP_Q_FAILED, again reopening the window for a second teardown path to drop the queue reference.

Fix this by serializing both post-send state transitions with state_lock and bailing out if teardown has already started.

Use -ESHUTDOWN as an internal sentinel for that bail-out path rather than propagating it as a transport error like -ECONNRESET. Keep nvmet_tcp_socket_error() setting rcv_state to NVMET_TCP_RECV_ERR before honoring that sentinel so receive-side parsing stays quiesced until the existing release path completes.

Affected product:

AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU , CentOS 8.4 ELS , CentOS 8.5 ELS , CentOS Stream 8 ELS , TuxCare 9.6 ESU , Ubuntu 20.04 ELS

Affected packages:

kernel @ 4.18.0 (+6 more)

Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.