published September 12, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
mm: memcg: stop reclaim when a limit update is superseded
kernfs serializes file operations only per open file, so separate open
files can update the same memory.high or memory.max file concurrently.
Both handlers store the new limit before synchronous reclaim, but continue
to use the writer's local target in the reclaim loop. If another writer
raises or removes the limit, the first writer can continue reclaiming
toward a stale target.
For memory.max, this can leave the writer looping indefinitely once
reclaim retries are exhausted. The OOM path sees sufficient margin under
the current limit and returns true without killing, while the writer still
compares usage against its stale target and records another OOM event.
Check the current limit at the start of each reclaim iteration and stop if
it no longer matches the writer's target.
Reproducer:
Populate a cgroup with anonymous memory and disable swapping. Lower
memory.max from one open file, then restore it to "max" through another
open file after the new limit becomes visible.
Without the patch, the first writer remains blocked and repeatedly
increments the OOM event counter. With the patch, it returns normally.
This was not motivated by a reported production workload. We found it
through automated randomized testing for our cgroup observability work
and reduced it to the reproducer above.