Medium [CVE-2026-72316] dm era: fix NULL pointer dereference in metadata_open
This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-72316 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.
Aggregated and source-linked by VulniPulse. Data sources, validation and limitations.
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Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: dm era: fix NULL pointer dereference in metadata_open() metadata_open() returns NULL when kzalloc_obj() fails, but the caller era_ctr() only checks IS_ERR(md).
Since IS_ERR(NULL) returns false, the NULL pointer is treated as a valid result and later assigned to era->md, leading to a NULL pointer dereference when the metadata is accessed.
Fix this by returning ERR_PTR(-ENOMEM) on allocation failure, consistent with dm-cache-metadata.c, dm-thin-metadata.c, and dm-clone-metadata.c which all use ERR_PTR(-ENOMEM) for the same pattern. A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's device mapper (dm) era target.
The calling function, `era_ctr()`, does not correctly validate this return, leading to a NULL pointer dereference when the metadata is accessed. This issue can be triggered by a local attacker, potentially causing a system crash and resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS).
Red Hat severity: Low — CVSS 4.7 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H). Weakness: CWE-476.
Affected Red Hat products: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9. Will not fix / out of support: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
Red Hat does not currently list a fixing RHSA for this CVE.
Affected products named by the advisory: Red Hat package: kernel-rt.
Affected versions
No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative — check it before change work.
Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 24 days ago·verify at source
Fixed versions
No fixed release is recorded yet. That does not prove no patch exists — confirm against the vendor advisory.
Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 24 days ago·verify at source
Mitigation
The source record does not include mitigation steps. That is not a statement that no fix exists — read the vendor advisory below for the authoritative guidance.
Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 24 days ago·verify at source
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