Medium [CVE-2026-74686] Reset tail when preserving queue on deadlock
This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-74686 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat package: kernel.
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Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: rqspinlock: Reset tail when preserving queue on deadlock Currently, the destruction of the waiter queue is suppressed for rqspinlock in cases where a deadlock is detected.
Deadlock checks happen relatively frequently (on entry for AA, within 1ms for ABBA), and waiter threads may not be involved in locking scenarios involving deadlocks. Thus, it is useful to not flush the queue and let other waiters take a stab at acquiring the lock after we detect a deadlock and exit.
However, we need to follow the same logic as what we did previously for the waitq_timeout label: reset the tail, and if we cannot, signal the next waiter appropriately. In case of deadlocks, this signal would just mark the MCS node as unlocked, and in case of timeouts, it would signal RES_TIMEOUT_VAL.
The difference thus is in the value propagated, which decides whether the queue remains active or gets flushed. Not doing the tail reset, and waiting for the next waiter can lead to cases where we are the final waiter, and thus no next waiter arrives, leading to intermittent stalls in this path.
Once the next waiter does join, we will be unblocked. In the theoretical case when the next waiter never joins, we risk stalling indefinitely.
This can only happen for ABBA deadlocks, since entry into the wait queue is guarded with AA checks.
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 48 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 48 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 48 minutes ago·verify at source
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