CVE-2026-90432 PUBLISHED

sched_ext: Abort directly from the hardlockup handler

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

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

sched_ext: Abort directly from the hardlockup handler

scx_hardlockup() defers the abort to an irq_work because exit claiming used to take scx_sched_lock and couldn't run from NMI. The deferral is now unnecessary - claiming is NMI-safe and asserting ->aborting is exactly what breaks the live-locks that hard-lock CPUs. Call handle_lockup() directly and drop the irq_work. This also makes the self-detected case recoverable: the perf watchdog fires on the hard-locked CPU itself, where a queued irq_work never runs with IRQs off.

Also fix the return value: %true used to be returned whenever sched_ext was loaded, suppressing the kernel's hardlockup report even when the abort was refused. Return %true only when this call initiated the abort.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from bd2d76455b65aab77652823919db128a8e585825 to 4d6270bbb4e083a4d2d39f3c36f30f5c939c06ed (excl.)
  • affected from bd2d76455b65aab77652823919db128a8e585825 to 3c4b38064937a761ebbf85b1649e812db85eb59e (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 7.1 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 7.1 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2.6 to 7.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.3-rc1 to * (incl.)

References