CVE-2026-99065 - In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: cgroup/cpuset: Handle cpu hotplug race in guarantee
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
cgroup/cpuset: Handle cpu hotplug race in guarantee_active_cpus()
With commit 2125c0034c5d ("cgroup/cpuset: Make cpuset hotplug processing
synchronous"), the cpuset hotplug operation becomes synchronous. That
commit also removes the code that handles race between cpuset_hotplug_work
and cpu hotplug notifier with the assumption that race is now gone.
Later commit 7a0aabd9ce69 ("cgroup/cpuset: Always use cpu_active_mask")
updates the cpuset code to always use cpu_active_mask instead of
cpu_online_mask in some places including guarantee_online_cpus() which
is renamed to guarantee_active_cpus() in that commit.
In the case of CPU offline operation, cpu_active_mask is updated
first in sched_cpu_deactivate() to remove the offline CPU before
cpuset_handle_hotplug() is called to update the effective_cpus of the
affected cpusets. The cpu_online_mask is updated after that near the end
of the offline operation to remove the offline CPU. As a result, the race
comes back and the top cpuset may not have any active CPU leading to NULL
pointer dereference during the race window when guarantee_active_cpus()
is called after cpu_active_mask is updated to remove the CPU to be torn
down but before cpuset_handle_hotplug() is able to properly update the
effective_cpus of the top cpuset.
Fix this by adding back the NULL cs check to avoid this problem.
INFORMATIONAL
Severity & confidence
Source severityinformational
Platform severityinformational
Confidencehigh
Exploitationunknown
CVSS-
Affected
Vendorslinux
Reporting sources (1)
NIST NVD - National Vulnerability Database
Timeline & provenance
Published2026-10-23T13:17:30
Last updated2026-10-26T13:03:58
Ingested2026-10-25T19:54:38
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