CVE-2026-98542
Received
Received - Intake
Partition State Conflict in Linux Kernel cpuset Subsystem
Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-98542, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.
Publication date: 2026-10-18
Last updated on: 2026-10-18
Assigner: kernel.org
Description
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
cgroup/cpuset: Return PERR_NOCPUS in remote_partition_enable() on subpartitions_cpus conflict
When a remote partition is created underneath an existing local partition
via a non-partition (PRS_MEMBER) intermediate cgroup, update_prstate() sees
parent->partition_root_state == PRS_MEMBER and calls
remote_partition_enable().
Commit 86888c7bd117 ("cgroup/cpuset: Add warnings to catch inconsistency
in exclusive CPUs") replaced the cpumask_intersects(tmp->new_cpus,
subpartitions_cpus) error check in remote_partition_enable() with
WARN_ON_ONCE(). As a result, remote_partition_enable() emits a warning
and proceeds to enable the remote partition on CPUs that are already
owned by the ancestor local partition in subpartitions_cpus.
This can be reproduced on Linux 7.3.0-rc3 with:
mkdir -p /tmp/cg1
mount -t cgroup2 none /tmp/cg1
echo "+cpuset" > /tmp/cg1/cgroup.subtree_control
mkdir /tmp/cg1/A
echo 1 > /tmp/cg1/A/cpuset.cpus
echo 1 > /tmp/cg1/A/cpuset.cpus.exclusive
echo root > /tmp/cg1/A/cpuset.cpus.partition
echo "+cpuset" > /tmp/cg1/A/cgroup.subtree_control
mkdir /tmp/cg1/A/B
echo 1 > /tmp/cg1/A/B/cpuset.cpus
echo 1 > /tmp/cg1/A/B/cpuset.cpus.exclusive
echo "+cpuset" > /tmp/cg1/A/B/cgroup.subtree_control
mkdir /tmp/cg1/A/B/D
echo 1 > /tmp/cg1/A/B/D/cpuset.cpus
echo 1 > /tmp/cg1/A/B/D/cpuset.cpus.exclusive
echo root > /tmp/cg1/A/B/D/cpuset.cpus.partition
which triggers:
WARNING: kernel/cgroup/cpuset.c:1594 at remote_partition_enable+0x1c1/0x300
and leaves both /tmp/cg1/A and /tmp/cg1/A/B/D as active root partitions
claiming exclusive CPU 1.
Fix this by returning PERR_NOCPUS when tmp->new_cpus intersects
subpartitions_cpus in remote_partition_enable(), matching the error code
used by remote_cpus_update() for the same subpartitions_cpus conflict, and
add a regression test case to
tools/testing/selftests/cgroup/test_cpuset_prs.sh.
Tested in QEMU on Linux 7.3.0-rc3 using the reproducer above and
tools/testing/selftests/cgroup/test_cpuset_prs.sh.
CVSS Scores
EPSS Scores
| Probability: | |
| Percentile: |
Meta Information
Affected Vendors & Products
| Vendor | Product | Version / Range |
|---|---|---|
| Linux | Linux | 86888c7bd117c29eab169c37e5f6bbbf583da983 |
| Linux | Linux | 86888c7bd117c29eab169c37e5f6bbbf583da983 |
| Linux | Linux | 86888c7bd117c29eab169c37e5f6bbbf583da983 |
| Linux | Linux | 6.16 |
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
CWE
KEV
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-UNKNOWN |
