CVE-2026-23390

tracing/dma: Cap dma_map_sg tracepoint arrays to prevent buffer overflow

published March 25, 2026

CVSS
—
EPSS
0%
Percentile
2.8
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

tracing/dma: Cap dma_map_sg tracepoint arrays to prevent buffer overflow

The dma_map_sg tracepoint can trigger a perf buffer overflow when

tracing large scatter-gather lists. With devices like virtio-gpu

creating large DRM buffers, nents can exceed 1000 entries, resulting

in:

phys_addrs: 1000 * 8 bytes = 8,000 bytes

dma_addrs: 1000 * 8 bytes = 8,000 bytes

lengths: 1000 * 4 bytes = 4,000 bytes

Total: ~20,000 bytes

This exceeds PERF_MAX_TRACE_SIZE (8192 bytes), causing:

WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 5497 at kernel/trace/trace_event_perf.c:405

perf buffer not large enough, wanted 24620, have 8192

Cap all three dynamic arrays at 128 entries using min() in the array

size calculation. This ensures arrays are only as large as needed

(up to the cap), avoiding unnecessary memory allocation for small

operations while preventing overflow for large ones.

The tracepoint now records the full nents/ents counts and a truncated

flag so users can see when data has been capped.

Changes in v2:

- Use min(nents, DMA_TRACE_MAX_ENTRIES) for dynamic array sizing

instead of fixed DMA_TRACE_MAX_ENTRIES allocation (feedback from

Steven Rostedt)

- This allocates only what's needed up to the cap, avoiding waste

for small operations

Reviwed-by: Sean Anderson <[email protected]>

The record
Technical detail
CVSS
Not scored
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00136 · 2.8th percentile
Published
2026-03-25T10:29Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 25 MAR 10:29Z
    tracing/dma: Cap dma_map_sg tracepoint arrays to prevent buffer overflow
    cvelistv5