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

bpf: Avoid soft lockup in __htab_map_lookup_and_delete_batch()

__htab_map_lookup_and_delete_batch() has no rescheduling point. The
batch count bounds how many entries are copied out, not how many
buckets are visited, so one BPF_MAP_LOOKUP_BATCH call can walk the
map end to end. The empty-bucket fast path is worse: it stays inside
a single rcu_read_lock() / bpf_disable_instrumentation() section for
any run of consecutive empty buckets.

That holds up on small maps, but it falls apart at scale. On a
144-CPU arm64 host running a CONFIG_PREEMPT_NONE kernel, periodic
BPF_MAP_LOOKUP_BATCH calls against an LRU hash map with 16,777,216
buckets held a CPU inside the batch op for 77+ seconds and triggered
the soft lockup watchdog.

Commit 75134f16e7dd ("bpf: Add schedule points in batch ops") fixed this
same problem in the generic batch ops, but not in this htab-native path,
which every htab-based hash map variant uses for its lookup[_and_delete]
batch ops.

Complete that fix here. Leave the critical section after 64 consecutive
empty buckets, call cond_resched_tasks_rcu_qs(), and resume at the saved
bucket cursor. No locks are held at that point, and resuming from the
cursor is already the function's behavior for non-empty buckets. Add the
same call to the per-bucket loop after copy_to_user(), where every lock
has been dropped. cond_resched_rcu() is not enough here: sleeping with
bpf_prog_active elevated makes tracing programs on that CPU silently
skip their invocations.

Plain cond_resched() is not enough either. It is a no-op under PREEMPT
and PREEMPT_LAZY, the only models arm64 and x86 have offered since
commit 7dadeaa6e851 ("sched: Further restrict the preemption modes").
It is also never a Tasks RCU quiescent state, in any model: the
reschedule counts as a preemption. The walking task stays a holdout and
stalls every synchronize_rcu_tasks() caller, ftrace and BPF trampoline
teardown included, until the syscall returns [1].
cond_resched_tasks_rcu_qs() is the usual tool for that [2]. It reports
the quiescent state at each yield and still reschedules as
cond_resched() does on PREEMPT_NONE and PREEMPT_VOLUNTARY kernels.
Advisories

No advisories yet.

Fixes

Solution

No solution given by the vendor.


Workaround

No workaround given by the vendor.

History

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 19:30:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Weaknesses CWE-12

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 15:30:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: Avoid soft lockup in __htab_map_lookup_and_delete_batch() __htab_map_lookup_and_delete_batch() has no rescheduling point. The batch count bounds how many entries are copied out, not how many buckets are visited, so one BPF_MAP_LOOKUP_BATCH call can walk the map end to end. The empty-bucket fast path is worse: it stays inside a single rcu_read_lock() / bpf_disable_instrumentation() section for any run of consecutive empty buckets. That holds up on small maps, but it falls apart at scale. On a 144-CPU arm64 host running a CONFIG_PREEMPT_NONE kernel, periodic BPF_MAP_LOOKUP_BATCH calls against an LRU hash map with 16,777,216 buckets held a CPU inside the batch op for 77+ seconds and triggered the soft lockup watchdog. Commit 75134f16e7dd ("bpf: Add schedule points in batch ops") fixed this same problem in the generic batch ops, but not in this htab-native path, which every htab-based hash map variant uses for its lookup[_and_delete] batch ops. Complete that fix here. Leave the critical section after 64 consecutive empty buckets, call cond_resched_tasks_rcu_qs(), and resume at the saved bucket cursor. No locks are held at that point, and resuming from the cursor is already the function's behavior for non-empty buckets. Add the same call to the per-bucket loop after copy_to_user(), where every lock has been dropped. cond_resched_rcu() is not enough here: sleeping with bpf_prog_active elevated makes tracing programs on that CPU silently skip their invocations. Plain cond_resched() is not enough either. It is a no-op under PREEMPT and PREEMPT_LAZY, the only models arm64 and x86 have offered since commit 7dadeaa6e851 ("sched: Further restrict the preemption modes"). It is also never a Tasks RCU quiescent state, in any model: the reschedule counts as a preemption. The walking task stays a holdout and stalls every synchronize_rcu_tasks() caller, ftrace and BPF trampoline teardown included, until the syscall returns [1]. cond_resched_tasks_rcu_qs() is the usual tool for that [2]. It reports the quiescent state at each yield and still reschedules as cond_resched() does on PREEMPT_NONE and PREEMPT_VOLUNTARY kernels.
Title bpf: Avoid soft lockup in __htab_map_lookup_and_delete_batch()
First Time appeared Linux
Linux linux Kernel
CPEs cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Vendors & Products Linux
Linux linux Kernel
References

Projects

Sign in to view the affected projects.

cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: Linux

Published:

Updated: 2026-10-18T15:20:15.380Z

Reserved: 2026-09-25T10:25:14.362Z

Link: CVE-2026-98644

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-10-18T16:17:17.623

Modified: 2026-10-18T16:17:17.623

Link: CVE-2026-98644

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

Updated: 2026-10-18T19:15:14Z

Weaknesses