CVE-2026-98706 PUBLISHED

wifi: mac80211: drain PS delivery work during station teardown

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

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

wifi: mac80211: drain PS delivery work during station teardown

Removing an AP or mesh station can notify the driver and wake TXQs after the station has already been removed from the driver, and can update num_sta_ps and the power-save queues after station cleanup has purged them.

sta_deliver_ps_frames() tests sta->dead only before it starts delivery. A worker that passes that test can be delayed while teardown sets sta->dead and removes the station from the driver; when it resumes it still runs the full delivery.

The existing cancel_work_sync() sits near the end of __cleanup_single_sta(), after the final driver state transition and after PS accounting and queue purging, so it drains the worker only once the state it has to protect has already changed. Before commit d34ba2168a3c ("mac80211: don't delay station destruction") cleanup was deferred through the same ordered workqueue as the delivery work, which kept the two ordered.

Cancel the work after setting sta->dead and before moving the driver state, and move the existing cancellation to the start of __cleanup_single_sta(). The first drain closes the driver-lifetime window; driver callbacks during the remaining state transitions can still queue drv_deliver_wk through ieee80211_sta_block_awake(), so retain the second drain at the start of __cleanup_single_sta(). That drain also covers insertion failures, which reach cleanup without setting sta->dead.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from d34ba2168a3c10e7301cca06069c39865b4c3ec6 to 843d3a1e6f25027ac85f88f67b95d82c67306dee (excl.)
  • affected from d34ba2168a3c10e7301cca06069c39865b4c3ec6 to 772bd89304ecf057cc51ce4ce24a1a96ac9c8de3 (excl.)
  • affected from d34ba2168a3c10e7301cca06069c39865b4c3ec6 to 097460fcdd8ab9ef6f6018b2fdc29ba0ea499298 (excl.)
  • affected from d34ba2168a3c10e7301cca06069c39865b4c3ec6 to 67a9e80c3ca20c9044cd6ee72cd6278dd19b5023 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 3.14 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 3.14 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.12.113 to 6.12.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.56 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2.10 to 7.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.3-rc6 to * (incl.)

References