CVE-2026-90387: swiotlb: Preserve allocation virtual address for dynamic pools

Published Sep 17, 2026
·
Updated

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

swiotlb: Preserve allocation virtual address for dynamic pools

swiotlballoctlb() can allocate from the DMA atomic pool when a decrypted pool is needed from atomic context. With CONFIGDMADIRECTREMAP, the atomic pool is backed by remapped virtual addresses, which are not the same as the direct-map addresses returned by phystovirt().

swiotlbinitiotlbpool() currently reconstructs the pool virtual address from the physical start address. For atomic-pool backed allocations this stores the wrong address in pool->vaddr. Later, swiotlbfreetlb() passes that address to dmafreefrompool(), which will fail to recognize the chunk

Pass the virtual address returned by the allocation path into swiotlbinitiotlbpool(), and store that address in pool->vaddr. This keeps the pool free path using the same virtual address as the allocator.

Affected Software

1 affected component
Linux Linux kernel

Event History

Sep 17, 2026
CVE Published
via MITRE·04:09 PM
Data Sourced
via MITRE·04:09 PM
Description

Frequently Asked Questions

1

Which kernel configurations and allocation paths are relevant to this issue?

The affected path requires a decrypted pool to be allocated from atomic context and CONFIG_DMA_DIRECT_REMAP to be enabled. In that configuration, the DMA atomic pool uses remapped virtual addresses rather than direct-map addresses.

2

What happens when the affected pool is freed?

The pool records a virtual address reconstructed from its physical address instead of the address returned by the allocator. As a result, dma_free_from_pool() does not recognize the allocation chunk when swiotlb_free_tlb() attempts to free it.

3

What does the resolved change do?

It passes the virtual address returned by the allocation path into swiotlb_init_io_tlb_pool() and stores that value in pool->vaddr. This ensures the free path uses the same virtual address used by the allocator.

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