CVE-2026-98512: drm/nouveau: RCU-free the scheduler-containing nouveau_sched

Severity: high (CVSS 7.1 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-10-18 · updated 2026-10-24

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/nouveau: RCU-free the scheduler-containing nouveau_sched struct nouveau_sched embeds a struct drm_gpu_scheduler (base). nouveau_sched_destroy() calls nouveau_sched_fini() (which does drm_sched_fini(&sched->base)) and then frees the object with plain kfree(sched). drm_sched_fence_get_timeline_name() returns fence->sched->name, and the scheduler fence keeps a .release callback so it is not ops-detached on signalling. A finished fence exported to userspace via drm_syncobj / sync_file therefore keeps pointing at &sched->base after nouveau_sched_destroy(), and a later get_timeline_name() -- reachable unprivileged through SYNC_IOC_FILE_INFO -- dereferences freed memory (KASAN slab-use-after-free read). Per the dma-fence lifetime contract the exporter must keep the data backing a signalled fence alive for an RCU grace period. Free the scheduler-containing object with kfree_rcu() instead of kfree().

Affected products

Linux kernel: 6.8 — fixed in 7.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 7.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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