CVEvulnerability
CVE-2026-43392
5.5 MEDIUM
Official page ↗
- Status
- Analyzed
- Published
- 2026-05-08
- Last modified
- 2026-06-17
- Assigner
- 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
- CVSS 3.1 ([email protected])
- 5.5 MEDIUM — CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
sched_ext: Fix starvation of scx_enable() under fair-class saturation
During scx_enable(), the READY -> ENABLED task switching loop changes the
calling thread's sched_class from fair to ext. Since fair has higher
priority than ext, saturating fair-class workloads can indefinitely starve
the enable thread, hanging the system. This was introduced when the enable
path switched from preempt_disable() to scx_bypass() which doesn't protect
against fair-class starvation. Note that the original preempt_disable()
protection wasn't complete either - in partial switch modes, the calling
thread could still be starved after preempt_enable() as it may have been
switched to ext class.
Fix it by offloading the enable body to a dedicated system-wide RT
(SCHED_FIFO) kthread which cannot be starved by either fair or ext class
tasks. scx_enable() lazily creates the kthread on first use and passes the
ops pointer through a struct scx_enable_cmd containing the kthread_work,
then synchronously waits for completion.
The workfn runs on a different kthread from sch->helper (which runs
disable_work), so it can safely flush disable_work on the error path
without deadlock.
Affected configurations
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.12.1 < 6.12.78)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.13 < 6.18.20)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.19 < 6.19.9)
• linux linux kernel 6.12
• linux linux kernel 7.0
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/05ab9ec5dc24f234e0a2fecf3e6ff937c68f7d81 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b06ccbabe2506fd70b9167a644978b049150224a Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c44198f25fdfecc0ec0fe366bf8a47fe17d8e229 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e0b14bf06393be137d3efb6a3b7cd5b4b9810a6b Patch