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Linux Kernel: Deadlock Risk in procfs Access

CVE-2026-23199
Summary

A vulnerability in the Linux kernel's procfs has been fixed, which could cause a deadlock when accessing certain kernel information. This has been resolved, but it's essential to ensure your system is updated to the latest version of the kernel to avoid potential issues.

Original title
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: procfs: avoid fetching build ID while holding VMA lock Fix PROCMAP_QUERY to fetch optional build ID only after dropping mmap_lo...
Original description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

procfs: avoid fetching build ID while holding VMA lock

Fix PROCMAP_QUERY to fetch optional build ID only after dropping mmap_lock
or per-VMA lock, whichever was used to lock VMA under question, to avoid
deadlock reported by syzbot:

-> #1 (&mm->mmap_lock){++++}-{4:4}:
__might_fault+0xed/0x170
_copy_to_iter+0x118/0x1720
copy_page_to_iter+0x12d/0x1e0
filemap_read+0x720/0x10a0
blkdev_read_iter+0x2b5/0x4e0
vfs_read+0x7f4/0xae0
ksys_read+0x12a/0x250
do_syscall_64+0xcb/0xf80
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f

-> #0 (&sb->s_type->i_mutex_key#8){++++}-{4:4}:
__lock_acquire+0x1509/0x26d0
lock_acquire+0x185/0x340
down_read+0x98/0x490
blkdev_read_iter+0x2a7/0x4e0
__kernel_read+0x39a/0xa90
freader_fetch+0x1d5/0xa80
__build_id_parse.isra.0+0xea/0x6a0
do_procmap_query+0xd75/0x1050
procfs_procmap_ioctl+0x7a/0xb0
__x64_sys_ioctl+0x18e/0x210
do_syscall_64+0xcb/0xf80
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f

other info that might help us debug this:

Possible unsafe locking scenario:

CPU0 CPU1
---- ----
rlock(&mm->mmap_lock);
lock(&sb->s_type->i_mutex_key#8);
lock(&mm->mmap_lock);
rlock(&sb->s_type->i_mutex_key#8);

*** DEADLOCK ***

This seems to be exacerbated (as we haven't seen these syzbot reports
before that) by the recent:

777a8560fd29 ("lib/buildid: use __kernel_read() for sleepable context")

To make this safe, we need to grab file refcount while VMA is still locked, but
other than that everything is pretty straightforward. Internal build_id_parse()
API assumes VMA is passed, but it only needs the underlying file reference, so
just add another variant build_id_parse_file() that expects file passed
directly.

[[email protected]: fix up kerneldoc]
Published: 14 Feb 2026 · Updated: 10 Mar 2026 · First seen: 6 Mar 2026