CVE-2026-98920 - In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: netfs: Fix missing alloc tagging of direct mempool
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
netfs: Fix missing alloc tagging of direct mempool allocations
Commit 1d78d56c43ef ("netfs: Fix folio_queue ENOMEM in writeback by
adding a mempool") added a mempool for the folio_queues and made the
request, subrequest and folio_queue allocations distinguish between
writeback and everything else. Writeback is part of memory reclaim
and must not fail due to ENOMEM, so it allocates under GFP_NOFS
through mempool_alloc(), which may dip into the pool's reserve and,
if that runs empty, wait for elements to be returned. The
GFP_KERNEL paths, which can return -ENOMEM to their callers, invoke
the pool's ->alloc() callback directly instead.
The direct call, however, skips the alloc_hooks() wrapper that the
mempool_alloc() macro provides. The pool callbacks, mempool_alloc_slab()
and mempool_kmalloc(), call kmem_cache_alloc_noprof() and kmalloc_noprof()
and rely on current->alloc_tag having been set by the caller. With
CONFIG_MEM_ALLOC_PROFILING_DEBUG=y this leads to
current->alloc_tag not set
WARNING: ./include/linux/alloc_tag.h:161 at __alloc_tagging_slab_alloc_hook
alloc_tag was not set
WARNING: ./include/linux/alloc_tag.h:166 at __alloc_tagging_slab_free_hook
at allocation and free time respectively, as reported when reading
files on a CIFS mount. The allocations are also missing from
/proc/allocinfo.
Wrap the direct ->alloc() invocations in alloc_hooks() with a new
mempool_alloc_noreserve() helper in include/linux/mempool.h, next to
the other alloc_hooks()-wrapped macros such as mempool_alloc(). The
GFP_KERNEL paths keep their failable allocation semantics, they just
get tagged now.
INFORMATIONAL
Severity & confidence
Source severityinformational
Platform severityinformational
Confidencehigh
Exploitationunknown
CVSS-
Affected
Vendorslinux
Reporting sources (1)
NIST NVD - National Vulnerability Database
Timeline & provenance
Published2026-10-23T13:17:12
Last updated2026-10-26T07:24:54
Ingested2026-10-25T10:27:14
FreshnessNEAR-REAL-TIME
Threat typevulnerability
Recommended action
No recommended action published with this item - review the original source.
Next steps
- Identify affected systems in your environment.
- Apply the vendor patch or mitigation guidance.
- Review logs for indicators described in the advisory.
- Follow the affected vendor/product to track updates.
Confidence explanation
Reported by a government or cert-grade source (CISA, NCSC, NVD, ENISA, MSRC).
Source type: standards ยท Original: NIST NVD - National Vulnerability Database