CVE-2026-63988: bridge: Fix sleep in atomic context in sysfs path

Published Jul 19, 2026
·
Updated

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

bridge: Fix sleep in atomic context in sysfs path

Since the start of the git history, brportstore() always acquired the bridge lock. Back then this decision made sense: The bridge lock protects the STP state of the bridge and its ports and at that time the function was only used by two STP related attributes (cost and priority).

Nowadays, brportstore() processes a lot more attributes and most of them do not need the bridge lock:

Bridge flags: Only require RTNL. Read locklessly by the data path. Annotations can be added in net-next.

FDB port flushing: Only requires the FDB lock.

Multicast attributes: Only require the multicast lock.

Group forward mask: Only requires RTNL. Read locklessly by the data path. Annotations can be added in net-next.

Backup port: Only requires RTNL. Read locklessly by the data path.

This is a problem as the bridge calls devsetpromiscuity() when certain bridge port flags change and this function can sleep since the commit cited below, resulting in a splat such as [1].

Fix this by reducing the scope of the bridge lock and only take it when processing the two STP related attributes that require it. Remove the now stale comment from brswitchdevsetportflag(). The SWITCHDEVFDEFER flag can be removed in net-next.

[1] BUG: sleeping function called from invalid context at net/core/devaddrlists.c:1262 inatomic(): 1, irqsdisabled(): 0, nonblock: 0, pid: 372, name: bash preemptcount: 201, expected: 0 RCU nest depth: 0, expected: 0 5 locks held by bash/372: #0: ffff88810c51c3f0 (sbwriters#7){.+.+}-{0:0}, at: ksyswrite (fs/readwrite.c:740) #1: ffff888115ce9480 (&of->mutex){+.+.}-{4:4}, at: kernfsfopwriteiter (fs/kernfs/file.c:343) #2: ffff88810b9fd330 (kn->active#37){.+.+}-{0:0}, at: kernfsfopwriteiter (fs/kernfs/file.c:80 fs/kernfs/file.c:344) #3: ffffffffa59473a0 (rtnlmutex){+.+.}-{4:4}, at: brportstore (net/bridge/brsysfsif.c:326) #4: ffff8881099d2d58 (&br->lock){+...}-{3:3}, at: brportstore (./include/linux/spinlock.h:348 net/bridge/brsysfsif.c:345) Preemption disabled at: 0x0 Hardware name: Bochs Bochs, BIOS Bochs 01/01/2011 Call Trace: <TASK> dumpstacklvl (lib/dumpstack.c:94 lib/dumpstack.c:120) mightresched.cold (kernel/sched/core.c:9163) netifrxmoderun (net/core/devaddrlists.c:1262) netifrxmodesync (net/core/devaddrlists.c:1428) devsetpromiscuity (net/core/devapi.c:289) brmanagepromisc (net/bridge/brif.c:135 net/bridge/brif.c:172) brportflagschange (net/bridge/brif.c:242 net/bridge/brif.c:747) storelearning (net/bridge/brsysfsif.c:79 net/bridge/brsysfsif.c:235) brportstore (net/bridge/brsysfsif.c:346) kernfsfopwriteiter (fs/kernfs/file.c:352) newsyncwrite (fs/readwrite.c:595) vfswrite (fs/readwrite.c:688) ksyswrite (fs/readwrite.c:740) dosyscall64 (arch/x86/entry/syscall64.c:63 arch/x86/entry/syscall64.c:94) entrySYSCALL64afterhwframe (arch/x86/entry/entry64.S:121)

Affected Software

11 affected components
Linux Linux kernel
Linux Linux kernel>=6.15.1<6.18.35
Linux Linux kernel>=6.19<7.0.12
Linux Linux kernel=6.15
Linux Linux kernel=6.15-rc6
Linux Linux kernel=6.15-rc7
Linux Linux kernel=7.1-rc1
Linux Linux kernel=7.1-rc2
Linux Linux kernel=7.1-rc3
Linux Linux kernel=7.1-rc4
Linux Linux kernel=7.1-rc5

Event History

Jul 19, 2026
CVE Published
via MITRE·02:56 PM
Data Sourced
via MITRE·02:56 PM
Description
Data Sourced
via NVD·04:17 PM
RemedyDescriptionSeverityWeaknessAffected Software

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