{"id":"CVE-2026-52980","url":"https://www.cyber-defence.io/tools/cve/CVE-2026-52980","generatedAt":"2026-10-28T04:35:45.319Z","title":"In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sched/fair: Clear rel_deadline when initializing forked entities A yield-triggered crash can happen when a newly forked sched_entity enters the fair class with se->rel_deadline…","description":"In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\nsched/fair: Clear rel_deadline when initializing forked entities\n\nA yield-triggered crash can happen when a newly forked sched_entity\nenters the fair class with se->rel_deadline unexpectedly set.\n\nThe failing sequence is:\n\n  1. A task is forked while se->rel_deadline is still set.\n  2. __sched_fork() initializes vruntime, vlag and other sched_entity\n     state, but does not clear rel_deadline.\n  3. On the first enqueue, enqueue_entity() calls place_entity().\n  4. Because se->rel_deadline is set, place_entity() treats se->deadline\n     as a relative deadline and converts it to an absolute deadline by\n     adding the current vruntime.\n  5. However, the forked entity's deadline is not a valid inherited\n     relative deadline for this new scheduling instance, so the conversion\n     produces an abnormally large deadline.\n  6. If the task later calls sched_yield(), yield_task_fair() advances\n     se->vruntime to se->deadline.\n  7. The inflated vruntime is then used by the following enqueue path,\n     where the vruntime-derived key can overflow when multiplied by the\n     entity weight.\n  8. This corrupts cfs_rq->sum_w_vruntime, breaks EEVDF eligibility\n     calculation, and can eventually make all entities appear ineligible.\n     pick_next_entity() may then return NULL unexpectedly, leading to a\n     later NULL dereference.\n\nA captured trace shows the effect clearly. Before yield, the entity's\nvruntime was around:\n\n  9834017729983308\n\nAfter yield_task_fair() executed:\n\n  se->vruntime = se->deadline\n\nthe vruntime jumped to:\n\n  19668035460670230\n\nand the deadline was later advanced further to:\n\n  19668035463470230\n\nThis shows that the deadline had already become abnormally large before\nyield_task_fair() copied it into vruntime.\n\nrel_deadline is only meaningful when se->deadline really carries a\nrelative deadline that still needs to be placed against vruntime. A\nfreshly forked sched_entity should not inherit or retain this state.\nClear se->rel_deadline in __sched_fork(), together with the other\nsched_entity runtime state, so that the first enqueue does not interpret\nthe new entity's deadline as a stale relative deadline.","published":"2026-06-24T17:17:09.000Z","lastModified":"2026-07-14T16:51:26.000Z","status":"Analyzed","sourceIdentifier":"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67","cvss":{"version":"3.1","score":5.5,"severity":"MEDIUM","vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H"},"cwe":["CWE-476"],"affected":["linux/linux kernel"],"epss":{"score":0.00162,"percentile":0.05314,"date":"2026-10-27","history":[]},"kev":{"listed":false},"exploits":{"count":0,"verified":false,"firstPublished":null,"source":"Exploit-DB (https://gitlab.com/exploit-database/exploitdb)","entries":[]},"verdict":{"level":"low","text":"Lower severity and a low EPSS score (0.16%). Track it; it rarely justifies an emergency change on its own."},"changes":[],"references":[{"url":"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3da56dc063cd77b9c0b40add930767fab4e389f3","tags":["Patch"],"source":"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67"},{"url":"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8f4a16200785f49cf02c5b71bdfe7a9dab63f23a","tags":["Patch"],"source":"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67"},{"url":"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c71bf35caba12bfd9bc23e32b0bcd9e02d1cf1ac","tags":["Patch"],"source":"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67"},{"url":"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f3c16e1f4a314a20717ab90a41885f8111a242ab","tags":["Patch"],"source":"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67"}],"sources":{"nvd":"https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-52980","epss":"https://www.first.org/epss/","kev":"https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog","exploitdb":"https://www.exploit-db.com/"},"licence":"CC BY 4.0 — link back to the CVE Explorer if you publish the results; upstream data remains subject to its own terms."}