CVE-2026-90181

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ublk: avoid teardown retry loop on xarray allocation failure __ublk_shmem_remove_ranges() removes matching maple tree ranges in batches, but first stores each range into a temporary xarray so that the pages can be unpinned after dropping the maple tree lock. That temporary xarray is filled under the maple tree lock with xa_store(..., GFP_ATOMIC). If the store fails before mas_erase(), the current range is left in the tree and the helper returns false. The outer ublk_shmem_remove_ranges() loop then immediately retries the same range. While the atomic allocation keeps failing, the teardown path has no forward progress. The issue can be reproduced with radix_tree_node failslab injection after a SHMEM_ZC buffer has already been registered: # Kernel config: # CONFIG_BLK_DEV_UBLK=y # CONFIG_DEBUG_FS=y # CONFIG_FAULT_INJECTION=y # CONFIG_FAULT_INJECTION_DEBUG_FS=y # CONFIG_FAILSLAB=y echo 10 > /proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages mkdir -p /tmp/htlb mount -t hugetlbfs none /tmp/htlb fallocate -l 4M /tmp/htlb/ublk_buf dev_id=$(kublk add -t null --shmem_zc \ --htlb /tmp/htlb/ublk_buf | awk -F '[ :]' '/dev id/ {print $3}') echo 1 > /sys/kernel/slab/radix_tree_node/failslab echo Y > /sys/kernel/debug/failslab/cache-filter echo Y > /sys/kernel/debug/failslab/ignore-gfp-wait echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/failslab/interval echo -1 > /sys/kernel/debug/failslab/times echo 100 > /sys/kernel/debug/failslab/probability kublk del -n "$dev_id" On the unfixed kernel the delete command was still running after 3 seconds. Disabling failslab made it return. The fault-injection stack showed: should_failslab kmem_cache_alloc_lru_noprof __xas_nomem __xa_store xa_store __ublk_shmem_remove_ranges ublk_cdev_rel ublk_ctrl_del_dev Remove the allocation from the teardown loop. Keep the existing batch limit, but collect {base_pfn, nr_pages} pairs in a fixed-size stack array. Once a matching range is found, the range is erased from the maple tree before dropping the lock, so each successful scan makes progress without depending on any GFP_ATOMIC allocation. With the same failslab settings, the fixed kernel completed "kublk del -n $dev_id" successfully in about 45 ms.

Package Linux Kernel
Published 2026-09-17
Last modified 2026-09-17
Patch available
Yes

Affected versions

Linux kernel versions 7.1 and later are affected. Fixed in 7.2.6, 7.3-rc1 and their respective stable series.

Affected from
≥ 7.1
Fixed in
✓ 7.2.6 7.2.x ✓ 7.3-rc1

Frequently asked questions

  • What is CVE-2026-90181?

    CVE-2026-90181 is a unscored severity Linux kernel vulnerability . It affects Linux kernel versions from 7.1 onward and has been patched in 7.2.6 and 7.3-rc1. CVE-2026-90181 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

  • Is there a patch available for CVE-2026-90181?

    Yes. CVE-2026-90181 has been patched. Fixed versions include 7.2.6 and 7.3-rc1. If you are running Linux kernel 7.1 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.

  • Is CVE-2026-90181 actively exploited?

    No. CVE-2026-90181 has not been confirmed as actively exploited. It is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.