High [CVE-2026-74439] Clear Present bit before tearing down scalable-mode context entry
This high-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-74439 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, Red Hat package: kernel-rt.
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Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: iommu/vt-d: Clear Present bit before tearing down scalable-mode context entry device_pasid_table_teardown() zeroes the 128-bit scalable-mode context entry with context_clear_entry() while the Present bit is still set.
This creates a window where the hardware can fetch a torn entry, with some fields already zeroed while Present is still set, leading to unpredictable behavior or spurious faults.
The context-cache invalidation is issued only after the entry has been zeroed, and intel_pasid_free_table() then frees the PASID directory pages, so the IOMMU can keep walking a stale Present=1 entry that points at freed memory.
While x86 provides strong write ordering, the compiler may reorder the two 64-bit writes to the entry, and the hardware fetch is not guaranteed to be atomic with respect to multiple CPU writes.
Commit c1e4f1dccbe9d ("iommu/vt-d: Clear Present bit before tearing down context entry") fixed this exact pattern in domain_context_clear_one() and the copied-context path, but device_pasid_table_teardown() was not converted.
Align it with the "Guidance to Software for Invalidations" in the VT-d spec, Section 6.5.3.3, using the same ownership handshake as the sibling fix: clear only the Present bit, flush it to the IOMMU, perform the context-cache invalidation, and only then zero the rest of the entry.
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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