CVE-2026-43296

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

octeontx2-af: Workaround SQM/PSE stalls by disabling sticky

NIX SQ manager sticky mode is known to cause stalls when multiple SQs share an SMQ and transmit concurrently. Additionally, PSE may deadlock on transitions between sticky and non-sticky transmissions. There is also a credit drop issue observed when certain condition clocks are gated.

work around these hardware errata by:

• Disabling SQM sticky operation:
  • Clear TM6 (bit 15)
  • Clear TM11 (bit 14)
• Disabling sticky → non-sticky transition path that can deadlock PSE:
  • Clear TM5 (bit 23)
• Preventing credit drops by keeping the control-flow clock enabled:
  • Set TM9 (bit 21)

These changes are applied via NIX_AF_SQM_DBG_CTL_STATUS. With this configuration the SQM/PSE maintain forward progress under load without credit loss, at the cost of disabling sticky optimizations.

Weakness

The product does not properly acquire or release a lock on a resource, leading to unexpected resource state changes and behaviors.

Affected Software

Extended Description

Locking is a type of synchronization behavior that ensures that multiple independently-operating processes or threads do not interfere with each other when accessing the same resource. All processes/threads are expected to follow the same steps for locking. If these steps are not followed precisely - or if no locking is done at all - then another process/thread could modify the shared resource in a way that is not visible or predictable to the original process. This can lead to data or memory corruption, denial of service, etc.

Potential Mitigations

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/25.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/26.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/27.html

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/36cc5a5e0178d5fb79e04173b8aa623b0108819a
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/70e9a5760abfb6338d63994d4de6b0778ec795d6
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8052d0587fb14b85539c3a14a226586c0c3d6b4c
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9a3fd301329474f449e75f86d8a4f6b9c603fd6c
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b7eba260a34e854e2487b8363c11976f082df00d
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/cec2ceb35ce7bc874c43812bb39200d6cf691b87
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d0b3c8a80336029d9356f429151eb27922d80a3c
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d9b549b6951ba178ec14339a031cae65f4e43fe1