CVE-2026-68436
Received Received - Intake

Memory Allocation Failure in AMD Display Driver

Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-68436, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.

Publication date: 2026-08-12

Last updated on: 2026-08-12

Assigner: kernel.org

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/amd/display: use kvzalloc to allocate struct dc struct dc has grown large over time (most of it the two inlined dc_scratch_space copies) and now sits close to the page allocator's 4 MiB contiguous allocation limit. Its actual size is not fixed by the source alone, it also depends on the compiler and the .config, so it can easily cross 4 MiB, e.g. with a newer GCC or a config change. dc_create() allocates it with kzalloc(). Once struct dc exceeds 4 MiB the request is rounded up to order 11 (8 MiB), which is above MAX_PAGE_ORDER, so the page allocator warns and returns NULL. dc_create() then fails, DM init fails and amdgpu probe aborts with -EINVAL: WARNING: mm/page_alloc.c:5197 at __alloc_frozen_pages_noprof+0x2f9/0x380 dc_create+0x38/0x660 [amdgpu] amdgpu_dm_init+0x2d9/0x510 [amdgpu] dm_hw_init+0x1b/0x90 [amdgpu] amdgpu_device_init.cold+0x150d/0x1e13 [amdgpu] amdgpu_driver_load_kms+0x19/0x80 [amdgpu] amdgpu_pci_probe+0x1e2/0x4c0 [amdgpu] dc_create() then returns NULL and DM init fails, which aborts the whole GPU init and makes amdgpu probe fail with -EINVAL ("hw_init of IP block <dm> failed -22"), leaving the display unusable. The subsequent amdgpu_irq_put() warnings during teardown are just fallout of unwinding a half-initialized device. struct dc is a software-only bookkeeping structure that is never handed to hardware DMA and is only ever kept as an opaque pointer, so it does not require physically contiguous memory. Allocate it with kvzalloc() (and free it with kvfree()) so that the allocator can fall back to vmalloc() when a contiguous allocation of that size is not available, which also avoids the MAX_PAGE_ORDER warning entirely. v2: - Rebase to amd-staging-drm-next. (cherry picked from commit 991e0516a8072f2292681c6ae98a924ab0e32575)

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Meta Information

Published
2026-08-12
Last Modified
2026-08-12
Generated
2026-08-12
AI Q&A
2026-08-12
EPSS Evaluated
N/A
NVD
EUVD

Affected Vendors & Products

Showing 1 associated CPE
Vendor Product Version / Range
amd amdgpu *

Helpful Resources

Exploitability

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CWE ID Description
CWE-UNKNOWN

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Executive Summary

This vulnerability in the Linux kernel occurs when the struct dc data structure exceeds 4 MiB in size due to compiler or configuration changes. The allocation function kzalloc() fails because it cannot handle contiguous memory requests above this limit, causing the display manager (DM) initialization to fail and making the GPU unusable.

Detection Guidance

This vulnerability is specific to the Linux kernel's AMD display driver (amdgpu). Detection involves checking kernel logs for allocation failures or GPU initialization errors. Look for messages like 'WARNING: mm/page_alloc.c:5197' or 'hw_init of IP block <dm> failed -22' in dmesg or journalctl logs.

Impact Analysis

If affected, your system may fail to initialize the AMD GPU display driver, resulting in a non-functional display. The system may boot but without proper graphics output, making it unusable for graphical applications or desktop environments.

Mitigation Strategies

Update your Linux kernel to a version that includes the fix for this issue. The vulnerability is resolved by changing the memory allocation method in the AMD display driver from kzalloc to kvzalloc. Check your distribution's updates or compile a patched kernel.

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