CVE-2026-98386 scsi: qla2xxx: Use memset_io() to clear QLAFX00 request ring slot
A Linux kernel bug in the qla2xxx driver causes a system crash on ARM64 when clearing request ring slots using invalid memory instructions.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-98386?
CVE-2026-98386 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 14 Oct 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:
scsi: qla2xxx: Use memset_io() to clear QLAFX00 request ring slot
For QLAFX00 the request ring is ioremapped device I/O memory (ha->iobase + req_que_off), not DMA-coherent RAM, which is why the rest of the FX00 path accesses it through memcpy_toio() and the wrt_reg_* helpers. __qla2x00_alloc_iocbs() however zeroed the producer slot with a plain memset(). On architectures such as ARM64 a regular memset() may emit unaligned or block-zeroing instructions (e.g. DC ZVA) that are invalid on Device memory, leading to a synchronous external abort.
Use memset_io() to clear the slot for QLAFX00, matching the I/O accessors used elsewhere on this ring. Other adapters keep the plain memset() on their DMA-coherent rings. The zero-fill is retained for FX00 because its IOCB builders (e.g. qlafx00_fxdisc_iocb()) copy only part of the entry and rely on the unused tail being pre-zeroed.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-98386?
How do I fix CVE-2026-98386?
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-2026-98386 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98386 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-108144, BELL-CVE-2026-98386, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98386, GHSA-xqf4-fcfm-9wq2, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98386.