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Linux Kernel mlx5e EUVDEUVD-2026-48618

| CVE-2026-64210 HIGH
2026-07-24 Linux GHSA-p5xx-69g5-8564
7.5
CVSS 3.1 · Vendor: Linux
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Severity by source

Vendor (Linux) PRIMARY
7.5 HIGH
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
vuln.today AI
4.7 MEDIUM

Local kernel race requiring AF_XDP-capable privilege (PR:L), specific hardware and concurrent affinity-change timing (AC:H); availability-only impact, no remote vector.

3.1 AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
4.0 AV:L/AC:H/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
SUSE
HIGH
qualitative
Red Hat
5.5 MEDIUM
qualitative

Primary rating from Vendor (Linux).

CVSS VectorVendor: Linux

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

Lifecycle Timeline

6
Metadata Corrected
Sep 16, 2026 - 08:40 vuln.today
tag: Information Disclosure replaced by Denial Of Service
Analysis Generated
Jul 27, 2026 - 07:31 vuln.today
CVSS changed
Jul 27, 2026 - 05:22 NVD
7.5 (HIGH)
Patch available
Jul 24, 2026 - 17:48 EUVD
CVE Published
Jul 24, 2026 - 15:23 cve.org
UNKNOWN (no severity yet)
CVE Published
Jul 24, 2026 - 15:23 cve.org
HIGH 7.5

DescriptionCVE.org

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

net/mlx5e: xsk: Fix unlocked writing to ICOSQ

During napi poll, when the affinity changes and there's still XSK work to be done, we trigger an ICOSQ interrupt on the new CPU. However, this triggering on the ICOSQ is done unprotected.

There are 2 such races:

A) mlx5e_trigger_irq() is called while mlx5e_xsk_alloc_rx_mpwqe() is running from a different CPU due to affinity change. This can happen because IRQ triggering is done after napi_complete_done(). At this point the NAPI can be scheduled on a different CPU. Like this:

CPU A (old affinity, NAPI tail) CPU B (new affinity, fresh NAPI) ------------------------------- -------------------------------- napi_complete_done() clears SCHED mlx5e_cq_arm(...) napi_schedule_prep() sets SCHED mlx5e_napi_poll() mlx5e_xsk_alloc_rx_mpwqe() mlx5e_icosq_sync_lock() // noop memcpy 640 B UMR body advance sq->pc by 10 mlx5e_trigger_irq(&c->icosq) wqe_info[pi] = {NOP, 1} mlx5e_post_nop() advances sq->pc

B) mlx5e_trigger_irq() is called on the ICOSQ when mlx5e_trigger_napi_icosq() is running.

The obvious fix would be to lock the ICOSQ. But ICOSQ has an optimized locking scheme that doesn't work for this scenario. Kick the async ICOSQ instead which is always locked.

This issue was noticed in the wild with the following splat:

netdevice: ge-0-0-1: Bad OP in ICOSQ CQE: 0xd WARNING: drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx5/core/en_rx.c:826 [...] [...] Call Trace: <IRQ> mlx5e_napi_poll+0x11d/0x7f0 [mlx5_core] __napi_poll+0x30/0x200 ? skb_defer_free_flush+0x9c/0xc0 net_rx_action+0x2fe/0x3f0 handle_softirqs+0xd8/0x340 __irq_exit_rcu+0xbc/0xe0 common_interrupt+0x85/0xa0 </IRQ> <TASK> asm_common_interrupt+0x26/0x40 [...] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- mlx5_core 0000:08:00.0 ge-0-0-1: Error cqe on cqn 0x548, ci 0x2022, qn 0x8f4, opcode 0xd, syndrome 0x2, vendor syndrome 0x68 00000000: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00000010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00000020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00000030: 00 00 00 00 01 00 68 02 01 00 08 f4 de 14 59 d2 WQE DUMP: WQ size 16384 WQ cur size 0, WQE index 0x1e14, len: 64 00000000: 00 00 00 01 d9 ed 80 02 00 00 00 01 d9 ed 90 02 00000010: 00 00 00 01 d9 ed a0 02 00 00 00 01 d9 ed b0 02 00000020: 00 00 00 01 d9 ed c0 02 00 00 00 01 d9 ed d0 02 00000030: 00 00 00 01 d9 ed e0 02 00 00 00 01 d9 ed f0 02 mlx5_core 0000:08:00.0 ge-0-0-1: Error cqe on cqn 0x548, ci 0x2023, qn 0x8f4, opcode 0xd, syndrome 0x5, vendor syndrome 0xf9 00000000: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00000010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00000020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00000030: 00 00 00 00 01 00 f9 05 01 00 08 f4 de 15 cf d2

AnalysisAI

Unlocked concurrent writes to the mlx5e ICOSQ (Internal Completion Queue Send Queue) in the Linux kernel's AF_XDP path allow a race condition during CPU affinity changes to corrupt work-queue state, producing bad CQEs and kernel warnings observed in production on Mellanox/NVIDIA ConnectX interfaces. Two distinct races exist: mlx5e_trigger_irq() racing with mlx5e_xsk_alloc_rx_mpwqe() across CPUs after NAPI completion, and mlx5e_trigger_irq() racing with mlx5e_trigger_napi_icosq() on the same path. The vulnerability manifests as an availability impact - corrupt ICOSQ entries trigger hardware-level error CQEs - with no public exploit code and EPSS at 0.15% (5th percentile), reflecting its operational rather than adversarial trigger.

Technical ContextAI

The mlx5e driver supports AF_XDP zero-copy packet processing via XSK (eXpress Socket Kit). The ICOSQ is a shared hardware send queue used to post UMR (User Memory Region) work requests for XSK buffer registration. Access to this queue requires holding an associated lock to prevent concurrent sq->pc (producer counter) and wqe_info[] updates. During NAPI poll, napi_complete_done() clears the NAPI_STATE_SCHED bit, allowing the NAPI context to immediately migrate to a new CPU via napi_schedule_prep(). The old CPU then calls mlx5e_trigger_irq() on the ICOSQ post-migration without locking, racing with the new CPU already executing mlx5e_xsk_alloc_rx_mpwqe(), which posts 640-byte UMR bodies and advances sq->pc by 10. The overlapping writes produce malformed NOP WQEs that the hardware rejects with opcode error 0xd (syndrome 0x2/0x5). The CWE is listed as N/A but the root cause is CWE-362 (Concurrent Execution Using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization). The fix redirects triggering to the async ICOSQ, which is always protected. CPE: cpe:2.3:a:linux:linux:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*.

RemediationAI

Update to a patched Linux kernel version (7.0.11, 7.1, or the appropriate stable-branch backport). Ubuntu users should apply the packages listed in USN-8618-1 at https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8618-1. For other distributions, apply the upstream stable patch commits referenced at https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0c8f331485656d5937d56a488016b944a038fe2f and related commits. As a compensating control, disabling AF_XDP/XSK on mlx5e interfaces (avoiding AF_XDP socket creation on mlx5 devices) eliminates the vulnerable code path at the cost of zero-copy XDP processing performance. Alternatively, pinning NAPI/IRQ affinity to fixed CPUs via /proc/irq/N/smp_affinity and disabling irqbalance for mlx5 IRQs reduces the affinity-change trigger frequency, but does not close the race window entirely. Monitoring kernel logs for 'Bad OP in ICOSQ CQE' warnings provides operational detection of active triggering.

Vendor StatusVendor

SUSE

Severity: Important
Product Status
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP7 Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP7 Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 16.0 Affected

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EUVD-2026-48618 vulnerability details – vuln.today

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