CVE-2026-52980 sched/fair: Clear rel_deadline when initializing forked entities

What is CVE-2026-52980?

CVE-2026-52980 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 24 Jun 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:

sched/fair: Clear rel_deadline when initializing forked entities

A yield-triggered crash can happen when a newly forked sched_entity enters the fair class with se->rel_deadline unexpectedly set.

The failing sequence is:

1. A task is forked while se->rel_deadline is still set. 2. __sched_fork() initializes vruntime, vlag and other sched_entity state, but does not clear rel_deadline. 3. On the first enqueue, enqueue_entity() calls place_entity(). 4. Because se->rel_deadline is set, place_entity() treats se->deadline as a relative deadline and converts it to an absolute deadline by adding the current vruntime. 5. However, the forked entity's deadline is not a valid inherited relative deadline for this new scheduling instance, so the conversion produces an abnormally large deadline. 6. If the task later calls sched_yield(), yield_task_fair() advances se->vruntime to se->deadline. 7. The inflated vruntime is then used by the following enqueue path, where the vruntime-derived key can overflow when multiplied by the entity weight. 8. This corrupts cfs_rq->sum_w_vruntime, breaks EEVDF eligibility calculation, and can eventually make all entities appear ineligible. pick_next_entity() may then return NULL unexpectedly, leading to a later NULL dereference.

A captured trace shows the effect clearly. Before yield, the entity's vruntime was around:

9834017729983308

After yield_task_fair() executed:

se->vruntime = se->deadline

the vruntime jumped to:

19668035460670230

and the deadline was later advanced further to:

19668035463470230

This shows that the deadline had already become abnormally large before yield_task_fair() copied it into vruntime.

rel_deadline is only meaningful when se->deadline really carries a relative deadline that still needs to be placed against vruntime. A freshly forked sched_entity should not inherit or retain this state. Clear se->rel_deadline in __sched_fork(), together with the other sched_entity runtime state, so that the first enqueue does not interpret the new entity's deadline as a stale relative deadline.

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-52980?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2026-52980?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2026-52980 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-52980 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-52980, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-52980, GHSA-748m-jm5v-3475, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-52980.