HIGH Introduced in 6.9
nvme ZoneInfo Corruption
CVE-2026-89971
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
KernelScan AI3.5LOW
01Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nvme: skip the zoned limits update if the zone info query failed nvme_query_zone_info() returns either a negative errno or a positive NVMe status code, but nvme_update_ns_info_block() only tests for the negative case: ret = nvme_query_zone_info(ns, lbaf, &zi); if (ret < 0) goto out; If the device fails the Identify Namespace (I/O Command Set specific) command, or the Identify Controller command issued by nvme_set_max_append(), the positive status falls through and setup continues with the zero-initialized zone info. nvme_update_zone_info() then marks the queue zoned with chunk_sectors and ns->head->zsze set to zero. blk_validate_zoned_limits() does not check chunk_sectors, so the limits commit succeeds. blk_revalidate_disk_zones() does reject the zero zone size, but by then the limits are live and nothing rolls them back, so I/O keeps being submitted to a zoned queue with a zero zone size and disk_zone_no() shifts by ilog2(0): nvme0n1: Invalid non power of two zone size (0) UBSAN: shift-out-of-bounds in include/linux/blkdev.h:747:16 shift exponent -1 is negative disk_zone_no include/linux/blkdev.h:747 [inline] bio_straddles_zones include/linux/blkdev.h:1058 [inline] blk_zone_wplug_handle_write block/blk-zoned.c:1423 [inline] blk_zone_plug_bio.cold+0x25/0x1c8 block/blk-zoned.c:1605 blk_mq_submit_bio+0x18fb/0x2870 block/blk-mq.c:3196 submit_bh_wbc+0x575/0x740 fs/buffer.c:2824 __block_write_full_folio+0x728/0xdd0 fs/buffer.c:1933 Any device, firmware or NVMe-oF target that fails this one command reaches this. Skip the zoned limits update in that case, and log which of the two things happened: during a revalidation the queue keeps the zone geometry it was last validated with, and on a first scan the namespace is registered without zoned limits, so that it is still available as a handle for admin commands. Neither of the paths in nvme_query_zone_info() that return a positive status logs anything, so the failure would otherwise be silent. zi.zone_size is an exact indicator: every path that returns a positive status returns before it is assigned, and after that the only failure left is -ENODEV, which the caller already handles. Found by FuzzNvme.
02KernelScan AI Analysis
Risk summary
A malicious or faulty NVMe device (or NVMe-oF target) that fails a zone information query causes the kernel to configure a zoned block queue with a zero zone size, leading to undefined behavior in zone-number calculations and data corruption. Any system with zoned NVMe storage is affected if the device fails the specific Identify command. The impact is limited to data integrity and degraded I/O on the affected namespace.
Vulnerability analysis
The NVMe host driver only checks for negative error returns from the zone information query and ignores positive NVMe status codes, so when a device or NVMe-oF target fails the Identify Namespace command the kernel proceeds with zero-initialized zone data and marks the queue as zoned with a zero zone size. Subsequent I/O computes zone numbers via a shift by the base-2 logarithm of zero, which is undefined behavior and produces incorrect zone calculations, directing writes to wrong zones with no rollback of the invalid limits. The fix checks whether the zone size field was actually populated before applying zoned limits, skipping the zoned configuration and logging a warning when the query failed so that the namespace remains available for admin commands without enabling broken zoned mode. Any NVMe device, firmware, or NVMe-oF target that fails this one command triggers the bug; exploitation requires physical access to insert a malicious device or control of an NVMe-oF target that the host connects to.
Lifecycle
03Fix Versions
| Branch | Introduced | Fixed in | Patch commit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6.12 | 6.9 | 6.12.112 | a75258e651d9 |
| 6.18 | 6.9 | 6.18.52 | 7fad53ae2052 |
| 7.2 | 6.9 | 7.2.5 | bb6dafa79040 |
| mainline | 6.9 | 7.3-rc2 | 3838e80fcfb3 |