CVE-2026-74384
CriticalCVSS 9.8Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk8th percentile - higher than 8% of all known CVEs
Summary
A vulnerability was found in the Linux kernel's nvme-multipath driver. The nvme_ns_head structure has a flexible array current_path[] indexed by NUMA node ID. Memory allocation used num_possible_nodes, which on systems with sparse NUMA IDs (e.g., POWER9) leads to out-of-bounds access (slab-out-of-bounds).
Risk Assessment
The vulnerability can cause system crash or memory corruption, potentially disrupting services in production. It cannot be exploited remotely but may be triggered during normal NVMe disk operations.
Recommendation
Update the Linux kernel to a version containing the fix (using nr_node_ids instead of num_possible_nodes). If not possible, restrict use of systems with sparse NUMA IDs (e.g., POWER9) until the patch is applied.
Original NVD description (English source)
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nvme-multipath: fix flex array size in struct nvme_ns_head struct nvme_ns_head contains a flexible array member, current_path[], which is indexed using the NUMA node ID: head->current_path[numa_node_id()] The structure is currently allocated as: size = sizeof(struct nvme_ns_head) + (num_possible_nodes() * sizeof(struct nvme_ns *)); head = kzalloc(size, GFP_KERNEL); This allocation assumes that NUMA node IDs are sequential and densely packed from 0 .. num_possible_nodes() - 1. While this assumption holds on many systems, it is not always true on some architectures such as powerpc. On some powerpc systems, NUMA node IDs can be sparse. For example: NUMA: NUMA node(s): 6 NUMA node0 CPU(s): 80-159 NUMA node8 CPU(s): 0-79 NUMA node252 CPU(s): NUMA node253 CPU(s): NUMA node254 CPU(s): NUMA node255 CPU(s): That is, the possible/online NUMA node IDs are: 0, 8, 252, 253, 254, 255 In this case: num_possible_nodes() = 6 So memory is allocated for only 6 entries in current_path[]. However, the array is later indexed using the actual NUMA node ID. As a result, accesses such as: head->current_path[8] or head->current_path[252] goes out of bounds, leading to the following KASAN splat: ================================================================== BUG: KASAN: slab-out-of-bounds in nvme_mpath_revalidate_paths+0x22c/0x290 [nvme_core] Write of size 8 at addr c00020003bda35b8 by task kworker/u641:2/1997 CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 1997 Comm: kworker/u641:2 Not tainted 7.1.0-rc5-dirty #14 PREEMPT(lazy) Hardware name: 8335-GTH POWER9 0x4e1202 opal:skiboot-v6.5.3-35-g1851b2a06 PowerNV Workqueue: async async_run_entry_fn Call Trace: [c000200037fa7510] [c0000000021c23d4] dump_stack_lvl+0x88/0xdc (unreliable) [c000200037fa7540] [c0000000009fda90] print_report+0x22c/0x67c [c000200037fa7630] [c0000000009fd508] kasan_report+0x108/0x220 [c000200037fa7740] [c0000000009fff48] __asan_store8+0xe8/0x120 [c000200037fa7760] [c008000018e76474] nvme_mpath_revalidate_paths+0x22c/0x290 [nvme_core] [c000200037fa7800] [c008000018e6556c] nvme_update_ns_info+0x4a4/0x5e0 [nvme_core] [c000200037fa7a50] [c008000018e66270] nvme_alloc_ns+0x6d8/0x1a70 [nvme_core] [c000200037fa7c20] [c008000018e679fc] nvme_scan_ns+0x3f4/0x630 [nvme_core] [c000200037fa7d10] [c00000000031f22c] async_run_entry_fn+0x9c/0x3a0 [c000200037fa7db0] [c0000000002fa544] process_one_work+0x414/0xa10 [c000200037fa7ec0] [c0000000002fbf00] worker_thread+0x320/0x640 [c000200037fa7f80] [c00000000030d0f8] kthread+0x278/0x290 [c000200037fa7fe0] [c00000000000ded8] start_kernel_thread+0x14/0x18 Allocated by task 1997 on cpu 1 at 35.928317s: The buggy address belongs to the object at c00020003bda3000 which belongs to the cache kmalloc-rnd-15-2k of size 2048 The buggy address is located 16 bytes to the right of allocated 1448-byte region [c00020003bda3000, c00020003bda35a8) The buggy address belongs to the physical page: Memory state around the buggy address: c00020003bda3480: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 c00020003bda3500: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 >c00020003bda3580: 00 00 00 00 00 fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc ^ c00020003bda3600: fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc c00020003bda3680: fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc ================================================================== Fix this by allocating the flexible array using nr_node_ids instead of num_possible_nodes(). Since nr_node_ids represents the maximum possible NUMA node IDs, indexing current_path[] using numa_node_id() becomes safe even on systems with sparse node IDs.