CVE-2026-80895

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

mshv: Order pt_vp_array publish against irqfd assertion path

mshv_partition_ioctl_create_vp() initialises a VP struct (allocations, mutex_init, init_waitqueue_head, page mappings) and then publishes the pointer into partition->pt_vp_array. Several ISR paths read this array locklessly: the intercept ISR, the two scheduler ISRs, and mshv_try_assert_irq_fast() on the irqfd fast path.

Of these, only mshv_try_assert_irq_fast() can structurally race the publish. It runs from an eventfd waker without holding pt_mutex, and MSHV_IRQFD does not require the target lapic_apic_id (== vp_index) to refer to an existing VP at registration time. A user can therefore register an irqfd targeting a yet-to-be-created VP, then trigger mshv_try_assert_irq_fast() concurrently with MSHV_CREATE_VP for the same index. On weakly-ordered architectures the reader can observe a non-NULL pointer in pt_vp_array before the initialising stores to the VP struct become visible, leading to use of partially-initialised fields (e.g. vp_register_page).

The other ISR readers cannot reach this race: the hypervisor will not generate intercept or scheduler messages for a VP that has never been told to run, and the user can only call MSHV_RUN_VP on the VP fd returned by MSHV_CREATE_VP, which by construction is returned after the publish. Leave those readers as plain loads.

Use smp_store_release() in mshv_partition_ioctl_create_vp() to publish the pointer, and pair it with smp_load_acquire() in mshv_try_assert_irq_fast(). On x86 these compile to plain accesses under TSO; on ARM64 they emit one-instruction acquire/release barriers, acceptable on this fast path.

The destroy-side path (destroy_partition() clearing pt_vp_array[i] to NULL after kfree(vp)) has a separate ordering and lifetime concern that is out of scope here.

Affected Software

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/062aa5dcc49a9ad96726a80c2a0ab0a1233bc2b9
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b098dc869219c15dc49bf9cf63fb5fc1481d3373
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/eba2bf5daa7933f94c53ebbbf0f567d4274716df