CVE-2026-53123 md: wake raid456 reshape waiters before suspend

Medium 5.5 Published Updated

A deadlock in the Linux kernel md driver during RAID456 reshape can cause a denial of service when suspending the array.

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

What is CVE-2026-53123?

CVE-2026-53123 is a medium-severity denial of service 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:

md: wake raid456 reshape waiters before suspend

During raid456 reshape, direct IO across the reshape position can sleep in raid5_make_request() waiting for reshape progress while still holding an active_io reference. If userspace then freezes reshape and writes md/suspend_lo or md/suspend_hi, mddev_suspend() kills active_io and waits for all in-flight IO to drain.

This can deadlock: the IO needs reshape progress to continue, but the reshape thread is already frozen, so the active_io reference is never dropped and suspend never completes.

raid5_prepare_suspend() already wakes wait_for_reshape for dm-raid. Do the same for normal md suspend when reshape is already interrupted, so waiting raid456 IO can abort, drop its reference, and let suspend finish.

The mdadm test tests/25raid456-reshape-deadlock reproduces the hang.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-53123?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2026-53123?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2026-53123 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-53123 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-53123, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-53123, GHSA-26h7-ghcj-373h, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-53123.

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