CVE-2026-23117: ice: add missing ice_deinit_hw() in devlink reinit path

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-02-14 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-476

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ice: add missing ice_deinit_hw() in devlink reinit path devlink-reload results in ice_init_hw failed error, and then removing the ice driver causes a NULL pointer dereference. [ +0.102213] ice 0000:ca:00.0: ice_init_hw failed: -16 ... [ +0.000001] Call Trace: [ +0.000003] <TASK> [ +0.000006] ice_unload+0x8f/0x100 [ice] [ +0.000081] ice_remove+0xba/0x300 [ice] Commit 1390b8b3d2be ("ice: remove duplicate call to ice_deinit_hw() on error paths") removed ice_deinit_hw() from ice_deinit_dev(). As a result ice_devlink_reinit_down() no longer calls ice_deinit_hw(), but ice_devlink_reinit_up() still calls ice_init_hw(). Since the control queues are not uninitialized, ice_init_hw() fails with -EBUSY. Add ice_deinit_hw() to ice_devlink_reinit_down() to correspond with ice_init_hw() in ice_devlink_reinit_up().

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 6.18.2 before 6.18.8; 6.19-rc1, 6.19-rc2, 6.19-rc3, 6.19-rc4, 6.19-rc5, 6.19-rc6 — fixed in 6.18.8

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.18.8. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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