CVE-2026-98542 PUBLISHED

cgroup/cpuset: Return PERR_NOCPUS in remote_partition_enable() on subpartitions_cpus conflict

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 25.09.2026 Published: 18.10.2026 Updated: 18.10.2026

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.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 86888c7bd117c29eab169c37e5f6bbbf583da983 to 241e67b60308cdce25bba66616a109759edd1d40 (excl.)
  • affected from 86888c7bd117c29eab169c37e5f6bbbf583da983 to 0751ab665cb3dcdac224b002565f2e28461740d5 (excl.)
  • affected from 86888c7bd117c29eab169c37e5f6bbbf583da983 to 31c88350b7dd1522792f726f79607f31bb55c50f (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 6.16 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 6.16 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.55 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2.9 to 7.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.3-rc5 to * (incl.)

References