CVE-2026-64281 svcrdma: wake sq waiters when the transport closes

High 7.5 Published Updated

Threads can hang indefinitely during RDMA transport teardown, causing a denial of service by blocking resource cleanup in the Linux kernel.

Exploited in the wild
Not known
Login needed
Not needed
Attackable
Over the internet
Victim action needed
Not needed
Fix
Available

What is CVE-2026-64281?

CVE-2026-64281 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 25 Jul 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

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

svcrdma: wake sq waiters when the transport closes

Threads parked in svc_rdma_sq_wait() on sc_sq_ticket_wait or sc_send_wait can hang indefinitely in TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE state across transport teardown, pinning svc_xprt references and blocking svc_rdma_free().

The close path sets XPT_CLOSE before invoking xpo_detach and both wait_event predicates include an XPT_CLOSE term, but the predicates are re-evaluated only on wakeup. sc_sq_ticket_wait has no completion-driven wake path; it is advanced solely by the chained ticket handoff inside svc_rdma_sq_wait() itself. Without an explicit wake at close, parked threads never observe XPT_CLOSE, hold their svc_xprt_get reference forever, and svc_rdma_free() blocks on xpt_ref dropping to zero.

Two close entry points reach this transport. Local teardown runs svc_rdma_detach() from svc_handle_xprt() -> svc_delete_xprt() -> xpo_detach() on a worker thread. A remote disconnect arrives at svc_rdma_cma_handler(), which calls svc_xprt_deferred_close(): that sets XPT_CLOSE and enqueues the transport but does not access either RDMA waitqueue, so a worker already parked in svc_rdma_sq_wait() never re-evaluates its predicate. With every worker parked on this transport, no thread is available to run the local teardown either, and the wake site there is unreachable.

Introduce svc_rdma_xprt_deferred_close(), a thin svcrdma wrapper that calls svc_xprt_deferred_close() and then wakes both sc_sq_ticket_wait and sc_send_wait. Convert the svcrdma producers that called svc_xprt_deferred_close() directly: svc_rdma_cma_handler(), qp_event_handler(), svc_rdma_post_send_err(), svc_rdma_wc_send(), the sendto drop path, the rw completion error paths, and the recvfrom flush and read-list error paths.

Wake both waitqueues from svc_rdma_detach() as well. The synchronous svc_xprt_close() path (backchannel ENOTCONN, device removal via svc_rdma_xprt_done) reaches detach without flowing through svc_xprt_deferred_close() and therefore does not invoke the new helper.

[ cel: add svc_rdma_xprt_deferred_close() to complete the fix ]

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-64281?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2026-64281?

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-2026-64281 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-64281 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2026-64281, GHSA-xxjx-gf9q-559x, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2026-64281, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-64281.

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