CVE-2026-68129

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

gve: fix Rx queue stall on alloc failure

When the system is under extreme memory pressure, page allocations can fail during the Rx buffer refill loop. If the number of buffers posted to hardware falls below a critical low threshold and the refill loop exits due to allocation failures, the queue can stall:

1. The device drops incoming packets because there are no descriptors.
2. Since no packets are processed, no Rx completions are generated.
3. Because no completions occur, NAPI is never scheduled, preventing the refill loop from running again even after memory is freed.

This results in a permanent queue stall.

Resolve this by introducing a starvation recovery timer for each Rx queue. If the number of buffers posted to hardware falls below a critical low threshold, start a timer to periodically reschedule NAPI. Once NAPI runs and successfully refills the queue above the threshold, the timer is not rescheduled.

The threshold is set to 32 because a single maximum-sized Receive Segment Coalescing (RSC) packet can consume up to 19 descriptors in the Rx path. Lower thresholds (such as 8 or 16) would be insufficient to process a complete maximum-sized RSC packet, risking packet drops or unexpected hardware behavior under memory pressure. Setting the threshold to 32 guarantees a safe margin to handle at least one full RSC packet.

Weakness

The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either:

• The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question.

• The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute – and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/147.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/227.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/492.html

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0c317349b4baa5038d1fc373bf46d5a2419d1710
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/299d5728a7312fdd02059b074aebbe4ebbd391e4
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/42d525e751c61b876b2b0ae4e71ba7a8ab0c2777
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/689b9f588d2d7323dc66293fe594a68d030f400f
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/91e0249f3ef62b75fe8c9c9372eaba32876e4b3a
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9db46e19e5d6bdcd4bf811284a5b0df1b984ef80
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b65352a1bac64442ad95e64f385b40ccb9f1b0db