CVE-2026-90207 PUBLISHED

ALSA: seq: midi: Serialize input teardown with event_input

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 11.09.2026 Published: 17.09.2026 Updated: 17.09.2026

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

ALSA: seq: midi: Serialize input teardown with event_input

snd_midi_input_event() must not be running while a rawmidi substream is closing, since this can lead to the trigger state becoming out-of-step through this sequence in snd_rawmidi_input_trigger():

<pre>snd_rawmidi_input_trigger(up=0) snd_midi_input_event() -> snd_rawmidi_kernel_read() -> snd_rawmidi_input_trigger(up=1) -> cancel_work_sync() </pre>

which ends with the underlying device being active unexpectedly.

When this is called from close_substream(), further input can re-trigger the input event leaving it running after rawmidi_release_priv() has set rfile->rmidi to NULL which leads to:

<pre>Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000000000000b0 Call trace: snd_midi_input_event+0x3c/0x134 [snd_seq_midi] (P) snd_rawmidi_input_event_work+0x1c/0x2c process_one_work+0x150/0x3a4 worker_thread+0x190/0x318 </pre>

Apply a similar approach to commit ef7607ab1c8ad ("ALSA: seq: midi: Serialize output teardown with event_input") which fixed the same issue in the output direction, but updated to use RCU following Takashi Iwai's proposed follow-on patch [1].

With this change in place, midisynth_unsubscribe() clears the input file so snd_midi_input_event() will not re-trigger the stream and will be quiesced by the cancel_work_sync() in snd_rawmidi_input_trigger().

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-sound/20260813144224.753399-1-tiwai@suse.de/

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to de76a2b47582cd6dba2e15f024681bf377ecc94a (excl.)
  • affected from 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to 89d986897aff7275b42e075e556731b8353366af (excl.)
  • affected from 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to 6290afaae54c7a9fa3bca3b4d5433e6d83e8669d (excl.)
  • affected from 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to 210c193a9ef1312fab153948c6928e4cfaa1f03b (excl.)
  • affected from 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to 282a3ef9e4b63b2f6823bbbb3c1a90b002cdaf12 (excl.)
  • affected from 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to 403f7f3ad3808a0096d84cf228fab68dc253fd9d (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 2.6.12 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 2.6.12 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.1.188 to 6.1.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.6.157 to 6.6.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.12.110 to 6.12.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.52 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2.6 to 7.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.3-rc1 to * (incl.)

References