Overview
About vulnerability
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
iommufd: Move vevent memory allocation outside spinlock
The veventq memory allocation happens inside the spinlock. Given its depth is decided by the user space, this leaves a vulnerability, where userspace can allocate large queues to exhaust atomic memory reserves.
Move the allocation outside the spinlock and use GFP_NOWAIT, which can fail fast under memory pressure without dipping into the GFP_ATOMIC reserves or direct-reclaiming from the threaded IRQ handler. On allocation failure, queue the lost_events_header (so userspace learns of the drop) and return -ENOMEM so the caller learns of the kernel-side memory pressure.
This is intentionally distinct from the queue-overflow path, which also queues the lost_events_header but returns 0: a full queue is an expected userspace-pacing condition rather than a kernel error.
A subsequent change will cap the upper bound of the veventq_depth.
Details
- Affected product:
- AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU , TuxCare 9.6 ESU , TuxCare 9.8 ESU
- Affected packages:
- kernel @ 5.14.0 (+2 more)
Fixes
KernelCare state
Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.
| Operating system | Status | Covered kernels |
|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 26.04 | Planned | — |