CVE-2026-64418In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
mm: shrinker: fix shrinker_info teardown race with expansion
expand_shrinker_info() iterates all visible memcgs under shrinker_mutex,
including memcgs that have not finished ->css_online() yet.
Once pn->shrinker_info has been published, teardown must stay serialized
with expand_shrinker_info() until that memcg is either fully online or no
longer visible to iteration. Today alloc_shrinker_info() breaks that rule
by dropping shrinker_mutex before freeing a partially initialized
shrinker_info array, which may cause the following race:
CPU0 CPU1
==== ====
css_create
--> list_add_tail_rcu(&css->sibling, &parent_css->children);
online_css
--> mem_cgroup_css_online
--> alloc_shrinker_info
--> alloc node0 info
rcu_assign_pointer(C->node0->shrinker_info, old0)
alloc node1 info -> FAIL -> goto err
mutex_unlock(shrinker_mutex)
shrinker_alloc()
--> shrinker_memcg_alloc
--> mutex_lock(shrinker_mutex)
expand_shrinker_info
--> mem_cgroup_iter see the memcg
expand_one_shrinker_info
--> old0 = C->node0->shrinker_info
memcpy(new->unit, old0->unit, ...);
free_shrinker_info
--> kvfree(old0);
/* double free !! */
kvfree_rcu(old0, rcu);
The same problem exists later in mem_cgroup_css_online(). If
alloc_shrinker_info() succeeds but a subsequent objcg allocation fails,
the free_objcg -> free_shrinker_info() unwind path tears down the already
published pn->shrinker_info arrays without shrinker_mutex. The
expand_one_shrinker_info() can race with that teardown in the same way,
leading to use-after-free or double-free of the old shrinker_info.
Fix this by serializing shrinker_info teardown with shrinker_mutex, and by
keeping alloc_shrinker_info() error cleanup inside the locked section.