CVE-2026-23261

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

nvme-fc: release admin tagset if init fails

nvme_fabrics creates an NVMe/FC controller in following path:

nvmf_dev_write()
  -> nvmf_create_ctrl()
    -> nvme_fc_create_ctrl()
      -> nvme_fc_init_ctrl()

nvme_fc_init_ctrl() allocates the admin blk-mq resources right after nvme_add_ctrl() succeeds. If any of the subsequent steps fail (changing the controller state, scheduling connect work, etc.), we jump to the fail_ctrl path, which tears down the controller references but never frees the admin queue/tag set. The leaked blk-mq allocations match the kmemleak report seen during blktests nvme/fc.

Check ctrl->ctrl.admin_tagset in the fail_ctrl path and call nvme_remove_admin_tag_set() when it is set so that all admin queue allocations are reclaimed whenever controller setup aborts.

Weakness

The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, making the memory unavailable for reallocation and reuse.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• Choose a language or tool that provides automatic memory management, or makes manual memory management less error-prone.
• For example, glibc in Linux provides protection against free of invalid pointers.
• When using Xcode to target OS X or iOS, enable automatic reference counting (ARC) [REF-391].
• To help correctly and consistently manage memory when programming in C++, consider using a smart pointer class such as std::auto_ptr (defined by ISO/IEC ISO/IEC 14882:2003), std::shared_ptr and std::unique_ptr (specified by an upcoming revision of the C++ standard, informally referred to as C++ 1x), or equivalent solutions such as Boost.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7c54d3f5ebbc5982daaa004260242dc07ac943ea
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d1877cc7270302081a315a81a0ee8331f19f95c8
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e810b290922c535feb34bc90ab549446fe94d2a3
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fa301aef50e3f3b5be6ee53457608beae5aa7a01