# CVE-2026-72063: gpio: tegra: do not call pinctrl for GPIO direction

> A sleep-in-atomic bug in the Tegra GPIO driver can cause a kernel crash when shared GPIO users access direction settings.

- **Severity:** Not scored
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 15 Aug 2026
- **Updated:** 23 Aug 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2026-72063, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-72063, GHSA-75r6-72m8-24v6, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-72063

## What is CVE-2026-72063?

CVE-2026-72063 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 15 Aug 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:

gpio: tegra: do not call pinctrl for GPIO direction

tegra_gpio_direction_input() and tegra_gpio_direction_output() already
program the GPIO controller direction registers directly. The additional
pinctrl_gpio_direction_input/output() calls do not add a Tegra pinctrl
operation, because the Tegra pinmux ops provide GPIO request/free
handling but no gpio_set_direction hook.

The extra call still enters the pinctrl core and takes pctldev->mutex.
Shared GPIO users can call the direction path while holding their
per-line spinlock, so this otherwise redundant pinctrl direction call can
sleep in an atomic context.

This was found by our static analysis tool and then confirmed by manual
review of tegra_gpio_probe(), the Tegra GPIO direction callbacks and the
Tegra pinctrl ops. The reviewed path has a default non-sleeping
struct gpio_chip while the direction callback still enters the pinctrl
mutex path.

A directed runtime validation kept the same non-sleeping chip registration
and drove:

  gpio_shared_proxy_direction_output()
  gpiod_direction_output_raw_commit()
  tegra_gpio_direction_output()
  pinctrl_gpio_direction_output()

Lockdep reported a sleep-in-atomic warning with the shared GPIO spinlock
held and pinctrl_get_device_gpio_range() plus tegra_gpio_direction_output()
on the stack.

Do not mark the whole chip as can_sleep to paper over this: can_sleep
describes whether get()/set() may sleep, and Tegra value access is MMIO.
Remove the redundant pinctrl direction calls and keep pinctrl involvement
in the existing request/free path.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-72063?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-72063?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2026-72063 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-72063 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-72063 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-72063 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 15 Aug 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-2026-72063 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux. 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-2026-72063/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-72063/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-72063
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-72063
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-72063

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-72063/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.