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CVE-2026-23177 Not scored

mm, shmem: prevent infinite loop on truncate race

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm, shmem: prevent infinite loop on truncate race When truncating a large swap entry, shmem_free_swap() returns 0 when the entry's index doesn't match the given index due to lookup alignment. The failure fallback path checks if the entry crosses the end border and aborts when it happens, so truncate won't erase an unexpected entry or range. But one scenario was ignored. When `index` points to the middle of a large swap entry, and the large swap entry doesn't go across the end border, find_get_entries() will return that large swap entry as the first item in the batch with `indices[0]` equal to `index`. The entry's base index will be smaller than `indices[0]`, so shmem_free_swap() will fail and return 0 due to the "base < index" check. The code will then call shmem_confirm_swap(), get the order, check if it crosses the END boundary (which it doesn't), and retry with the same index. The next iteration will find the same entry again at the same index with same indices, leading to an infinite loop. Fix this by retrying with a round-down index, and abort if the index is smaller than the truncate range.

Exploit probability 0.2%
Published February 14, 2026
Required by Not available
Last source change July 15, 2026

02 / AFFECTED SOFTWARE

Affected packages

Linux Kernel
Unknown Unknown

03 / CONNECTIONS

Connected vulnerabilities

related OPENSUSE-SU-2026:20416-1
related SUSE-SU-2026:20838-1
related SUSE-SU-2026:20931-1
related SUSE-SU-2026:21284-1

04 / EVIDENCE

Source records

Open Source Vulnerabilities CVE-2026-23177

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm, shmem: prevent infinite loop on truncate race When truncating a large swap entry, shmem_free_swap() returns 0 when the entry's index doesn't match the given index due to lookup alignment. The failure fallback path checks if the entry crosses the end border and aborts when it happens, so truncate won't erase an unexpected entry or range. But one scenario was ignored. When `index` points to the middle of a large swap entry, and the large swap entry doesn't go across the end border, find_get_entries() will return that large swap entry as the first item in the batch with `indices[0]` equal to `index`. The entry's base index will be smaller than `indices[0]`, so shmem_free_swap() will fail and return 0 due to the "base < index" check. The code will then call shmem_confirm_swap(), get the order, check if it crosses the END boundary (which it doesn't), and retry with the same index. The next iteration will find the same entry again at the same index with same indices, leading to an infinite loop. Fix this by retrying with a round-down index, and abort if the index is smaller than the truncate range.

View original source

05 / REFERENCES

Further evidence