CVE-2026-89511

Status: UPDATED  |  Advisory ID: CVE-2026-89511

Key Details

Affected Products, Subsystems & Sectors

What to Know

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

qede: Fix NULL pointer dereference in TPA fragment processing

Under memory pressure, the qede driver encounters NULL pointer

dereferences when processing TPA continuation fragments.

Commit 8a8633978b84 ("qede: Add build_skb() support.") accidentally

dropped the assignment of tpa_info->buffer.data in qede_tpa_start().

When memory pressure causes an SKB allocation failure in qede_tpa_start(),

the driver sets tpa_start_fail = true and attempts to recycle the physical

page later in qede_tpa_end() via qede_reuse_page(). However, because

buffer.data was left uninitialized (NULL), qede_reuse_page() pushes a

"ghost" BD (valid DMA mapping but NULL data pointer) back into the

active Rx ring.

The next time the hardware uses this ring slot, it passes a NULL page

to qede_fill_frag_skb(), causing a kernel panic.

Example crash from production system:

BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at 0x8

RIP: qede_fill_frag_skb+0x96/0x430 [qede]

Call Trace:

qede_rx_int+0xb06/0x1de0

qede_poll+0x2f4/0x6c0

__napi_poll+0x2d/0x130

Fix the root cause by restoring the tpa_info->buffer.data assignment

in qede_tpa_start(), ensuring valid pages are correctly tracked and

recycled. Additionally, update the stale comment for

struct qede_agg_info::buffer to reflect its current usage. (NVD)

What to Do

Monitor Linux's web page for any future patch releases.

References