CVE-2026-31552 PUBLISHED

wifi: wlcore: Return -ENOMEM instead of -EAGAIN if there is not enough headroom

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 09.03.2026 Published: 24.04.2026 Updated: 24.04.2026

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

wifi: wlcore: Return -ENOMEM instead of -EAGAIN if there is not enough headroom

Since upstream commit e75665dd0968 ("wifi: wlcore: ensure skb headroom before skb_push"), wl1271_tx_allocate() and with it wl1271_prepare_tx_frame() returns -EAGAIN if pskb_expand_head() fails. However, in wlcore_tx_work_locked(), a return value of -EAGAIN from wl1271_prepare_tx_frame() is interpreted as the aggregation buffer being full. This causes the code to flush the buffer, put the skb back at the head of the queue, and immediately retry the same skb in a tight while loop.

Because wlcore_tx_work_locked() holds wl->mutex, and the retry happens immediately with GFP_ATOMIC, this will result in an infinite loop and a CPU soft lockup. Return -ENOMEM instead so the packet is dropped and the loop terminates.

The problem was found by an experimental code review agent based on gemini-3.1-pro while reviewing backports into v6.18.y.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 88295a55fefe5414e64293638b6f7549646e58ed to 980f793645540ca7a6318165cc12f49d5febeb99 (excl.)
  • affected from cd89a4656c03f8db0c57350aaec69cd3cfaa3522 to 12f9eef39e49716c763714bfda835a733d5f6dea (excl.)
  • affected from 745a0810dbc96a0471e5f5e627ba1e978c3116d4 to ceb46b40b021d21911ff8608ce4ed33c1264ad2f (excl.)
  • affected from b167312390fdd461c81ead516f2b0b44e83a9edb to a6dc74209462c4fe5a88718d2f3a5286886081c8 (excl.)
  • affected from 71de0b6e04bbee5575caf9a1e4d424e7dcc50018 to cfa64e2b3717be1da7c4c1aff7268a009e8c1610 (excl.)
  • affected from 689a7980e4788e13e766763d53569fb78dea2513 to 46c670ff1ff466e5eccb3940f726586473dc053c (excl.)
  • affected from e75665dd096819b1184087ba5718bd93beafff51 to f2c06d718a7b85cbc59ceaa2ff3f46b178ac709c (excl.)
  • affected from e75665dd096819b1184087ba5718bd93beafff51 to deb353d9bb009638b7762cae2d0b6e8fdbb41a69 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 6.19 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 6.19 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 5.10.253 to 5.10.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 5.15.203 to 5.15.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.1.167 to 6.1.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.6.130 to 6.6.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.12.78 to 6.12.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.20 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.19.10 to 6.19.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.0 to * (incl.)

References