Copyright © 2012 Red Hat, Inc. All rights reserved. Moderate 2026-06-24T00:00:00 kernel: sched/fair: Clear rel_deadline when initializing forked entities 7.0 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H CWE-190

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sched/fair: Clear rel_deadline when initializing forked entities A yield-triggered crash can happen when a newly forked sched_entity enters the fair class with se->rel_deadline unexpectedly set. The failing sequence is: 1. A task is forked while se->rel_deadline is still set. 2. __sched_fork() initializes vruntime, vlag and other sched_entity state, but does not clear rel_deadline. 3. On the first enqueue, enqueue_entity() calls place_entity(). 4. Because se->rel_deadline is set, place_entity() treats se->deadline as a relative deadline and converts it to an absolute deadline by adding the current vruntime. 5. However, the forked entity's deadline is not a valid inherited relative deadline for this new scheduling instance, so the conversion produces an abnormally large deadline. 6. If the task later calls sched_yield(), yield_task_fair() advances se->vruntime to se->deadline. 7. The inflated vruntime is then used by the following enqueue path, where the vruntime-derived key can overflow when multiplied by the entity weight. 8. This corrupts cfs_rq->sum_w_vruntime, breaks EEVDF eligibility calculation, and can eventually make all entities appear ineligible. pick_next_entity() may then return NULL unexpectedly, leading to a later NULL dereference. A captured trace shows the effect clearly. Before yield, the entity's vruntime was around: 9834017729983308 After yield_task_fair() executed: se->vruntime = se->deadline the vruntime jumped to: 19668035460670230 and the deadline was later advanced further to: 19668035463470230 This shows that the deadline had already become abnormally large before yield_task_fair() copied it into vruntime. rel_deadline is only meaningful when se->deadline really carries a relative deadline that still needs to be placed against vruntime. A freshly forked sched_entity should not inherit or retain this state. Clear se->rel_deadline in __sched_fork(), together with the other sched_entity runtime state, so that the first enqueue does not interpret the new entity's deadline as a stale relative deadline.

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's `sched/fair` scheduler. When a new `sched_entity` is forked, its `rel_deadline` may be unexpectedly set, leading to an abnormally large deadline value. If the task later calls `sched_yield()`, this inflated deadline can cause an overflow in `vruntime` calculations. This can corrupt scheduler data, potentially making all entities appear ineligible and leading to a system crash, resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS).

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 Affected kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Not affected kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Not affected kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Not affected kernel-rt Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Not affected kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Not affected kernel-rt Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Not affected kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Not affected kernel-rt https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-52980 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-52980 https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2026062441-CVE-2026-52980-f55b@gregkh/T