CVE-2026-46256: NFS/localio: prevent direct reclaim recursion into NFS via nfs_writepages

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: 2026-06-03 · updated 2026-10-21
Weakness: CWE-667

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: NFS/localio: prevent direct reclaim recursion into NFS via nfs_writepages LOCALIO is an NFS loopback mount optimization that avoids using the network for READ, WRITE and COMMIT if the NFS client and server are determined to be on the same system. But because LOCALIO is still fundamentally "just NFS loopback mount" it is susceptible to recursion deadlock via direct reclaim, e.g.: NFS LOCALIO down to XFS and then back into NFS via nfs_writepages. Fix LOCALIO's potential for direct reclaim deadlock by ensuring that all its page cache allocations are done from GFP_NOFS context. Thanks to Ben Coddington for pointing out commit ad22c7a043c2 ("xfs: prevent stack overflows from page cache allocation").

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 6.12 before 6.18.14; from 6.19 before 6.19.4 — fixed in 6.18.14, 6.19.4

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.18.14, 6.19.4. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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