published October 14, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
s390/ipl: Fix NULL deref in kdump without re-IPL parm block
Some IPL types, like HMC FTP boot or QEMU direct kernel boot, might
not provide an IPL parameter block. In this case, reipl_type_init()
selects IPL_TYPE_UNKNOWN, and reipl_block_actual remains NULL.
kdump passes the re-IPL parameter block to the dump kernel through
os_info. Before commit 3b9678472bab ("s390/ipl: correct kdump reipl
block checksum calculation"), the os_info entry was added only for
IPL types which initialized reipl_block_actual. That commit moved the
os_info update to machine_crash_shutdown(), making it unconditional. As
a result, set_os_info_reipl_block() dereferences reipl_block_actual for
IPL_TYPE_UNKNOWN. This may happen to work by chance when address zero
contains readable lowcore data and the resulting empty os_info entry is
ignored by the dump kernel.
Skip the os_info update when no re-IPL parameter block is available.
Kdump then collect the dump and reboot without setting re-IPL parameter
block.