NVD Vulnerability Detail
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CVE-2026-43468
Summary

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

net/mlx5: Fix deadlock between devlink lock and esw->wq

esw->work_queue executes esw_functions_changed_event_handler ->
esw_vfs_changed_event_handler and acquires the devlink lock.

.eswitch_mode_set (acquires devlink lock in devlink_nl_pre_doit) ->
mlx5_devlink_eswitch_mode_set -> mlx5_eswitch_disable_locked ->
mlx5_eswitch_event_handler_unregister -> flush_workqueue deadlocks
when esw_vfs_changed_event_handler executes.

Fix that by no longer flushing the work to avoid the deadlock, and using
a generation counter to keep track of work relevance. This avoids an old
handler manipulating an esw that has undergone one or more mode changes:
- the counter is incremented in mlx5_eswitch_event_handler_unregister.
- the counter is read and passed to the ephemeral mlx5_host_work struct.
- the work handler takes the devlink lock and bails out if the current
generation is different than the one it was scheduled to operate on.
- mlx5_eswitch_cleanup does the final draining before destroying the wq.

No longer flushing the workqueue has the side effect of maybe no longer
cancelling pending vport_change_handler work items, but that's ok since
those are disabled elsewhere:
- mlx5_eswitch_disable_locked disables the vport eq notifier.
- mlx5_esw_vport_disable disarms the HW EQ notification and marks
vport->enabled under state_lock to false to prevent pending vport
handler from doing anything.
- mlx5_eswitch_cleanup destroys the workqueue and makes sure all events
are disabled/finished.

Publication Date May 9, 2026, 12:16 a.m.
Registration Date May 9, 2026, 4:15 a.m.
Last Update May 9, 2026, 12:16 a.m.
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