NULL pointer dereference in Linux

CVE-2024-26812

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: vfio/pci: Create persistent INTx handler A vulnerability exists where the eventfd for INTx signaling can be deconfigured, which unregisters the IRQ handler but still allows eventfds to be signaled with a NULL context through the SET_IRQS ioctl or through unmask irqfd if the device interrupt is pending. Ideally this could be solved with some additional locking; the igate mutex serializes the ioctl and config space accesses, and the interrupt handler is unregistered relative to the trigger, but the irqfd path runs asynchronous to those. The igate mutex cannot be acquired from the atomic context of the eventfd wake function. Disabling the irqfd relative to the eventfd registration is potentially incompatible with existing userspace. As a result, the solution implemented here moves configuration of the INTx interrupt handler to track the lifetime of the INTx context object and irq_type configuration, rather than registration of a particular trigger eventfd. Synchronization is added between the ioctl path and eventfd_signal() wrapper such that the eventfd trigger can be dynamically updated relative to in-flight interrupts or irqfd callbacks.

Published 2024-04-05 · last modified 2026-08-04.