CVE-2026-89759

medium

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/kmemleak: avoid soft lockup when scanning task stacks Patch series "mm/kmemleak: avoid soft lockup when scanning task", v3. kmemleak_scan() scans every task stack under one rcu_read_lock() with no reschedule point, which can trip the soft lockup watchdog on hosts with very many threads. That prints the following message, depending on the workload+host configuration: watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#35 stuck for 22s! [kmemleak:537] scan_block kmemleak_scan kmemleak_scan_thread kthread Patch 1 walks the tasks with find_ge_pid() so the scan reschedules between tasks Patches 2-3 let the scan loops stop early once a scan is interrupted. This patch (of 3): kmemleak_scan() walks every thread and scans its kernel stack under a single rcu_read_lock() with no reschedule point. On a host with very many threads -- amplified by KASAN/lockdep in debug builds -- this loop can hog a CPU long enough to trip the soft lockup watchdog: watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#35 stuck for 22s! [kmemleak:537] scan_block kmemleak_scan kmemleak_scan_thread kthread A cond_resched() cannot be added directly: the loop runs inside an RCU read-side critical section. Walk the tasks one PID at a time with find_ge_pid(), taking the RCU read lock only to look up and pin each task. The stack is then scanned with no lock held, so cond_resched() runs between tasks and the scan stops early on scan_should_stop(). This follows the next_tgid()/task_seq_get_next() iteration pattern and keeps each RCU critical section short.

References

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9a1b12c06c192290b8479de48f66f1e75d89c4b7

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5d10d4e19e6daa487f0cd0ea6cba472325de92f9

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3fc8044251de21555fb02c365fa681bab8b0db55

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1838c704bcb4fd3556cf67513c6f97a39099e35c

Details

Source: Mitre, NVD

Published: 2026-09-11

Updated: 2026-09-11

Risk Information

CVSS v2

Base Score: 4.9

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C

Severity: Medium

CVSS v3

Base Score: 5.5

Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Severity: Medium

EPSS

EPSS: 0.00186