nvme: zero the discard fallback page
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- High · None · None
- Fix status
- Partial Red Hat: 5 without a fix
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat.
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nvme: zero the discard fallback page nvme_setup_discard() always maps sizeof(struct nvme_dsm_range) * NVME_DSM_MAX_RANGES = 4096 bytes as the DSM payload however many ranges the command declares, because some devices ignore the 'Number of Ranges' field - the Fixes: commit records two that read past the declared ranges. A single-range discard fills only the first 16 bytes. Normally the buffer comes from kzalloc() and the other 4080 bytes are zero. When that allocation fails the code falls back to the per-controller ctrl->discard_page, which nvme_init_ctrl() obtains with alloc_page(GFP_KERNEL) and nothing ever zeroes, so those 4080 bytes are whatever the page last held and are handed to the controller. Reaching it requires the kzalloc(GFP_ATOMIC | __GFP_NOWARN) to fail, that is memory pressure; it is not remotely triggerable. Failing the allocation under KMSAN reproduces it, with the leaked tail full of vmemmap struct page pointers. The extent in the report is a partial transfer of the payload, not the whole 4096 bytes; the 16-byte boundary in it is the one declared range: [ 11.991601] BUG: KMSAN: uninit-value in dma_map_phys+0x14c8/0x1900 [ 11.991969] dma_map_phys+0x14c8/0x1900 [ 11.992220] dma_map_page_attrs+0xcf/0x130 [ 11.992485] e1000_xmit_frame+0x4099/0x6d10 [ 11.992768] dev_hard_start_xmit+0x22f/0xa80 [ 11.993068] sch_direct_xmit+0x35c/0xcb0 [ 11.993315] __dev_queue_xmit+0x1ee5/0x5eb0 [ 11.993608] ip_finish_output2+0x1903/0x1c30 [ 11.993881] ip_finish_output+0x288/0x870 [ 11.994125] ip_output+0x15e/0x400 [ 11.994365] __ip_queue_xmit+0x1e85/0x1fb0 [ 11.994639] ip_queue_xmit+0x60/0x80 [ 11.994899] __tcp_transmit_skb+0x4e71/0x5fa0 [ 11.995210] tcp_write_xmit+0x3a36/0x9160 [ 11.995533] __tcp_push_pending_frames+0xc5/0x3c0 [ 11.995854] tcp_push+0x7dc/0x840 [ 11.996076] tcp_sendmsg_locked+0x766c/0x8400 [ 11.996371] tcp_sendmsg+0x4b/0x90 [ 11.996572] inet_sendmsg+0x134/0x2a0 [ 11.996823] __sock_sendmsg+0x265/0x360 [ 11.997076] sock_sendmsg+0x100/0x1e0 [ 11.997293] nvme_tcp_try_send+0x196f/0x6370 [ 11.997605] nvme_tcp_queue_rq+0x1d54/0x20b0 [ 11.997882] blk_mq_dispatch_rq_list+0x5ee/0x2e50 [ 11.998175] __blk_mq_sched_dispatch_requests+0x16dc/0x24a0 [ 11.998539] blk_mq_sched_dispatch_requests+0x11b/0x2c0 [ 11.998865] blk_mq_run_work_fn+0x13b/0x280 [ 11.999146] process_scheduled_works+0x966/0x1ad0 [ 11.999465] worker_thread+0xe44/0x1480 [ 11.999709] kthread+0x53b/0x600 [ 11.999927] ret_from_fork+0x29f/0x7c0 [ 12.000191] ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 [ 12.000460] [ 12.000558] Uninit was created at: [ 12.000788] __alloc_frozen_pages_noprof+0x8bf/0xd30 [ 12.001096] alloc_pages_mpol+0x1d0/0x5f0 [ 12.001326] alloc_pages_noprof+0x102/0x290 [ 12.001627] nvme_init_ctrl+0x5a3/0x9f0 [ 12.001891] nvme_tcp_create_ctrl+0xd75/0x19b0 [ 12.002170] nvmf_dev_write+0x4c68/0x4fd0 [ 12.002426] vfs_write+0x587/0x1a10 [ 12.002636] __x64_sys_write+0x207/0x4f0 [ 12.002874] x64_sys_call+0x2ff0/0x3ea0 [ 12.003123] do_syscall_64+0x147/0x3b0 [ 12.003400] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f [ 12.003680] [ 12.003777] Bytes 16-2843 of 2844 are uninitialized [ 12.004068] Memory access of size 2844 starts at ffff888109f82000 [ 12.004412] [ 12.004530] CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 101 Comm: kworker/0:1H Not tainted 7.2.0-rc5-NVMECTL-gf5098b6bae76 #1 PREEMPT(lazy) [ 12.005127] Hardware name: QEMU Ubuntu 24.04 PC v2 (i440FX + PIIX, arch_caps fix, 1996), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2 04/01/2014 [ 12.005762] Workqueue: kblockd blk_mq_run_work_fn [ 12.006073] ===================================================== Allocate the page with __GFP_ZERO. The single allocation site covers every use of it: bytes no discard has written stay zero, and bytes one did write hold that controller's own range list, which it has already been sent.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- Automatable
- Yes
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
Remediation
- Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 4.20, 5.5
- Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 5.10.270, 5.15.221, 6.1.188, 6.6.157, 6.12.109, 6.18.50, 7.2.4, 7.3
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
| Product | Status | Plan or fix |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
Not affected: 2 products
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-89483
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-q8w5-3xh9-8fxf
- 2026-10-18 CISA SSVC decision points changed
- 2026-10-18 Priority changed: LOW → MEDIUM
- 2026-10-19 Fix available: Linux/[email protected] · CNA
- 2026-11-06 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
References
Other 8
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/76139b5bbf531e675934b97227be3521c7fdd537
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3f84d2bd0d8ae8c7e8e0f8fc3cbf018a282971a1
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/415f2772ebcbc7f3f1ab1a71915dab82cee3465e
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/66b5af23b6f956e57f8205c46aa80b054631be34
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/dc4d4b70a863f7e39ef8bd137634be4e6db8b084
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/67551d8430df94c827e1830bd3a5fae1f66a5219
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f5827817b4fc7feeabf4f53fb4b626e6edc52fef
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bededeaaeff404978a5a8e2a605a6c3017cddd3e
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Sources
- CVE-2026-89483 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-89483 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-q8w5-3xh9-8fxf · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2026-89483 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
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