Medium [CVE-2026-72474] use DMA pool to manange DMA descriptor
This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-72474.
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Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: dmaengine: dma-axi-dmac: use DMA pool to manange DMA descriptor For architectures like Microblaze or arm64 (where this IP is used), DMA_DIRECT_REMAP is set which means that dma_alloc_coherent() might remap (and hence vmalloc()) some memory.
This became visible in a design where dma_direct_use_pool() is not possible. With the above, when calling dma_free_coherent(), vunmap() would be called from softirq context and thus leading to a BUG().
To fix it, use a dma pool that is allocated in.device_alloc_chan_resources() and allocate blocks from it. The key point is that now dma_pool_free() is used in axi_dmac_free_desc() to free the blocks and that just frees the blocks from the pool in the sense they can be used again.
In other words, no actual call to dma_free_coherent() happens. That only happens when destroying the pool in axi_dmac_free_chan_resources() which does not happen in any interrupt context.
Under specific conditions on architectures like Microblaze or arm64, a memory management error can occur when the system attempts to free Direct Memory Access (DMA) coherent memory from a soft interrupt (softirq) context. This improper operation triggers a kernel bug, which can lead to a system crash and a Denial of Service (DoS).
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 56 minutes 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 56 minutes 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 56 minutes ago·verify at source
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