mm/mglru: fix and remove redundant unevictable folio handling
Key facts
- Attack vector
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- Privileges required
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- User interaction
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- Attack complexity
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- Impact type
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- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
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- Fix status
- Partial Red Hat: 5 without a fix
No CVSS vector from any source. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat.
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/mglru: fix and remove redundant unevictable folio handling sort_folio() has a shortcut for moving folios that are no longer evictable but are still sitting on a generation list. However, this shortcut is buggy. It does not follow the PG_lru usage convention, and it has a more serious issue. Unevictable folios are not threaded on lists[LRU_UNEVICTABLE], so that folio->lru can be reused to hold folio->mlock_count (see the comment in lruvec_init()). Hence lruvec_add_folio() skips the list_add() for them, and every other place that turns a folio unevictable initialises mlock_count explicitly: lru_add() sets it to 0, __mlock_folio() and __mlock_new_folio() set it to !!folio_test_mlocked(folio). sort_folio() sets nothing, and the lru_gen_del_folio() right above it may have already poisoned folio->lru via list_del(), so mlock_count ends up aliasing LIST_POISON2, which reads as 0x122, i.e. 290. The result is user visible. On munlock, __munlock_folio() decrements that bogus count, finds it still non-zero and bails out before clearing PG_mlocked, so the folio remains unevictable and the Mlocked accounting stays inflated until the folio is freed. The shortcut also touches the LRU flags in the wrong order. It calls lru_gen_del_folio() while PG_lru is still set, so a concurrent folio_test_clear_lru() (e.g. compaction, folio_isolate_lru()) can succeed on a folio that has already been taken off the generation list, which may lead to unexpected behavior. So fix it by isolating them as common folios and letting the generic shrink path cull them. This matches the classical LRU behavior, and there should be no visible effect on the generic eviction or isolation behavior. There is no performance concern either, such a folio goes through this once, and then it is off the generation lists for good.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
Not available: CISA has not published SSVC decision points for this record.
Affected products
Remediation
- Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 6.1.191, 6.6.160, 6.12.114, 6.18.51, 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 6 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| 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: 4 products
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
- Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-89757
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-rf75-rpf7-p84g
- 2026-10-19 Fix available: Linux/[email protected] · CNA
- 2026-10-21 Fix available: Linux/Linux@49193dac48d30eee2a21da88a7262d52a7feefae, Linux/[email protected], Linux/[email protected] +1 · CNA
- 2026-10-21 2 new references · CNA
- 2026-10-29 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
- 2026-10-30 Fix available: Linux/[email protected], Linux/Linux@e9f2160081a1e3ebb285bd71be3382abaeb8390a · CNA
- 2026-10-30 1 new reference · CNA
- 2026-11-06 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
References
Other 6
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e9f2160081a1e3ebb285bd71be3382abaeb8390a
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b1d7c69e6c7d3ec47513b911ce7529e56d183dad
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/49193dac48d30eee2a21da88a7262d52a7feefae
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/54a58d6656dd403b686b247f0bad8507cbfb45df
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/15d3a2a71c8bf7333d019d249ee33669e69e4275
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f7e698e326b239a91ea15844817551921209e826
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Sources
- CVE-2026-89757 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-89757 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-rf75-rpf7-p84g · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2026-89757 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
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