# CVE-2026-46050: md/raid10: fix deadlock with check operation and nowait requests

> A logic error in the Linux kernel RAID10 driver causes a deadlock when check operations coincide with NOWAIT requests, leading to system unavailability.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 27 May 2026
- **Updated:** 15 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-88623, BELL-CVE-2026-46050, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-46050, GHSA-7v6r-2w32-rrq7, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2026-46050, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2026-46050, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2026-46050, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-46050

## What is CVE-2026-46050?

CVE-2026-46050 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 27 May 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

md/raid10: fix deadlock with check operation and nowait requests

When an array check is running it will raise the barrier at which point
normal requests will become blocked and increment the nr_pending value to
signal there is work pending inside of wait_barrier(). NOWAIT requests
do not block and so will return immediately with an error, and additionally
do not increment nr_pending in wait_barrier(). Upstream change commit
43806c3d5b9b ("raid10: cleanup memleak at raid10_make_request") added a
call to raid_end_bio_io() to fix a memory leak when NOWAIT requests hit
this condition. raid_end_bio_io() eventually calls allow_barrier() and
it will unconditionally do an atomic_dec_and_test(&conf->nr_pending) even
though the corresponding increment on nr_pending didn't happen in the
NOWAIT case.

This can be easily seen by starting a check operation while an application
is doing nowait IO on the same array. This results in a deadlocked state
due to nr_pending value underflowing and so the md resync thread gets stuck
waiting for nr_pending to == 0.

Output of r10conf state of the array when we hit this condition:

crash> struct r10conf
	barrier = 1,
        nr_pending = {
          counter = -41
        },
        nr_waiting = 15,
        nr_queued = 0,

Example of md_sync thread stuck waiting on raise_barrier() and other
requests stuck in wait_barrier():

md1_resync
[<0>] raise_barrier+0xce/0x1c0
[<0>] raid10_sync_request+0x1ca/0x1ed0
[<0>] md_do_sync+0x779/0x1110
[<0>] md_thread+0x90/0x160
[<0>] kthread+0xbe/0xf0
[<0>] ret_from_fork+0x34/0x50
[<0>] ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30

kworker/u1040:2+flush-253:4
[<0>] wait_barrier+0x1de/0x220
[<0>] regular_request_wait+0x30/0x180
[<0>] raid10_make_request+0x261/0x1000
[<0>] md_handle_request+0x13b/0x230
[<0>] __submit_bio+0x107/0x1f0
[<0>] submit_bio_noacct_nocheck+0x16f/0x390
[<0>] ext4_io_submit+0x24/0x40
[<0>] ext4_do_writepages+0x254/0xc80
[<0>] ext4_writepages+0x84/0x120
[<0>] do_writepages+0x7a/0x260
[<0>] __writeback_single_inode+0x3d/0x300
[<0>] writeback_sb_inodes+0x1dd/0x470
[<0>] __writeback_inodes_wb+0x4c/0xe0
[<0>] wb_writeback+0x18b/0x2d0
[<0>] wb_workfn+0x2a1/0x400
[<0>] process_one_work+0x149/0x330
[<0>] worker_thread+0x2d2/0x410
[<0>] kthread+0xbe/0xf0
[<0>] ret_from_fork+0x34/0x50
[<0>] ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30

Weakness: CWE-667 (Improper Locking)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-46050?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2026-46050?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2026-46050 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-46050 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-46050 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-46050 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 27 May 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-46050 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-46050/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-46050/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-46050
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-46050
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-46050

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-46050/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.