CVE-2026-64419: mm/shrinker: do not hold RCU lock in shrinker_debugfs_count_show()

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: 2026-07-25 · updated 2026-09-04

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/shrinker: do not hold RCU lock in shrinker_debugfs_count_show() Reading the debugfs "count" file of a memcg-aware shrinker can sleep inside an RCU read-side critical section: BUG: sleeping function called from invalid context at kernel/cgroup/rstat.c:421 RCU nest depth: 1, expected: 0 css_rstat_flush mem_cgroup_flush_stats zswap_shrinker_count shrinker_debugfs_count_show shrinker_debugfs_count_show() invokes the ->count_objects() callback under rcu_read_lock(). The zswap callback flushes memcg stats via css_rstat_flush(), which may sleep, so it must not run under RCU. The RCU lock is not needed here. mem_cgroup_iter() takes RCU internally and returns a memcg holding a css reference (dropped on the next iteration or by mem_cgroup_iter_break()), so the memcg stays alive without it. The shrinker is kept alive by the open debugfs file: shrinker_free() removes the debugfs entries via debugfs_remove_recursive(), which waits for in-flight readers to drain, before call_rcu(..., shrinker_free_rcu_cb). The sibling "scan" handler already invokes the sleeping ->scan_objects() callback with no RCU section. Drop the rcu_read_lock()/rcu_read_unlock().

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 6.0 before 6.1.178; from 6.2 before 6.6.145; from 6.7 before 6.12.96; from 6.13 before 6.18.39; from 6.19 before 7.1.4 — fixed in 6.1.178, 6.12.96, 6.18.39, 6.6.145, 7.1.4

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.1.178, 6.12.96, 6.18.39, 6.6.145. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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