published October 6, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
wifi: mac80211: mesh: release the channel if start fails
ieee80211_join_mesh() acquires a channel context and then calls
ieee80211_start_mesh(), which can fail. In that case, the chanctx
isn't released then interface removal will attempt to unassign it
after it's removed from the driver, hitting:
wlan0: Failed check-sdata-in-driver check, flags: 0x0
WARNING: net/mac80211/driver-ops.c:366 at drv_unassign_vif_chanctx
ieee80211_assign_link_chanctx
__ieee80211_link_release_channel
ieee80211_link_release_channel
ieee80211_teardown_sdata
unregister_netdevice_many_notify
_cfg80211_unregister_wdev
ieee80211_remove_interfaces
ieee80211_unregister_hw
mac80211_hwsim_del_radio
hwsim_exit_net
Correctly release the channel on start failures.