CVE-2026-98815 — nvme: fix cdev lifetime

Affected: Linux

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

nvme: fix cdev lifetime

Sashiko bot reported a potential problem for the cdev lifetime in [0] - the code there is heavily based on the NVMe code.

Currently the NS head .open and .release file_operations methods take and put a reference to the nvme_ns_head to ensure that this structure does not disappear while we open fds for that cdev.

In multipath mode, when we teardown the NS head, we call nvme_cdev_del() -> cdev_device_del() -> cdev_del(). However after cdev_del() returns, cdevs already open will remain and their fops will still be callable. As such, we can still reference the cdev after the nvme_ns_head reference count drops to 0 (and is freed).

This can be shown with an application which delays between opening the cdev and issuing the ioctl while the NS head is being torn down:

# ./ioctl_file /dev/ng1n1 & # waiting 10 seconds ....

# ./ini_nvme_teardown.sh [ 21.221718] nvme nvme1: Removing ctrl: NQN "nvme-test-target" [ 21.274609] nvme nvme2: Removing ctrl: NQN "nvme-test-target" # now going to issue ioctl .... [ 26.549285] ================================================================== [ 26.550841] BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in cdev_put.part.0+0x3d/0x40 [ 26.552352] Read of size 8 at addr ffff88811e7fa170 by task ioctl_file/237 [ 26.553805] [ 26.554227] CPU: 3 UID: 0 PID: 237 Comm: ioctl_file Not tainted 7.2.0-rc1-00004-g6852a10e32d4 #921 PREEMPT(lazy) [ 26.554236] Hardwar…

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CVE-2026-98815 — nvme: fix cdev lifetime