medium CVSS 5.5

CVE-2024-36944·Kernel vulnerability

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: Reapply "drm/qxl: simplify qxl_fence_wait" This reverts commit 07ed11afb68d94eadd4ffc082b97c2331307c5ea. Stephen Rostedt reports: "I went to run my tests on my VMs and the tests hung on boot up. Unfortunately, the most I ever got out was: [ 93.607888] Testing event system initcall: OK [ 93.667730] Running tests on all trace events: [ 93.669757] Testing all events: OK [ 95.631064] ------------[ cut here ]------------ Timed out after 60 seconds" and further debugging points to a possible circular locking dependency between the console_owner locking and the worker pool locking. Reverting the commit allows Steve's VM to boot to completion again. [ This may obviously result in the "[TTM] Buffer eviction failed" messages again, which was the reason for that original revert. But at this point this seems preferable to a non-booting system... ]

Severity: medium
Software: Kernel
Fixed in: 6.8.10
Published: 2024-05-30

Affected versions

From: 6.8.7

Until: 6.8.10

Fixed in: 6.8.10

How to fix this CVE

Update your Linux kernel to version 6.8.10 or later to resolve a critical locking issue in the DRM QXL driver that causes system boot hangs. This fix reapplies a simplified fence wait mechanism that prevents circular lock dependencies between console and worker pool operations. Systems running kernel versions 6.8.7 through 6.8.9 should prioritize this update to restore stability.

sudo dnf update kernel kernel-devel

Defensia detects this vulnerability

How to check if you are affected

Run 'uname -r' to check your current kernel version; versions 6.8.7 through 6.8.9 are affected
Check if DRM QXL driver is loaded by running 'lsmod | grep qxl'; if present, the vulnerability applies to your system
Review kernel logs for timeout messages: 'dmesg | grep -i "timed out\|circular\|console_owner"' to identify lock contention
Verify the fix is installed by confirming kernel version is 6.8.10 or higher: 'uname -r | grep -E "6\.[89]|[7-9]\." && echo Patched || echo Vulnerable'

FAQ

What is CVE-2024-36944?

CVE-2024-36944 is a kernel stability issue affecting the DRM QXL graphics driver where a simplified fence wait function creates a circular lock dependency between console ownership and worker thread pool locks, causing system boot hangs that timeout after 60 seconds.

Is CVE-2024-36944 being actively exploited?

No, this vulnerability is not actively exploited in the wild. It is a denial-of-service condition affecting system stability rather than a security breach vector.

What versions of Kernel are affected by CVE-2024-36944?

Linux kernel versions 6.8.7, 6.8.8, and 6.8.9 are affected. The vulnerability was introduced in 6.8.7 and patched in 6.8.10.

How do I check if my server is vulnerable to CVE-2024-36944?

Run 'uname -r' and check if the output shows a version between 6.8.7 and 6.8.9. If yes and your system uses the QXL driver (check with 'lsmod | grep qxl'), your system is vulnerable to boot hangs.

Does Defensia detect CVE-2024-36944?

Yes — Defensia's CVE advisory scanner compares installed kernel package versions against the NVD database. If a vulnerable kernel version is detected on a monitored server, CVE-2024-36944 will appear in your dashboard with remediation steps.

Related Kernel CVEs

CVE-2026-100075CVSS 9.8In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: RDMA/srpt: Fix srpt_alloc_rw_ctxs() unwind counters When srpt_alloc_rw_ctxs() fails partway through a multi-buffer indirect descriptor, the unwind path destroys RDMA contexts but leaves stale n_rw_ctx and n_rdma values (and a dangling rw_ctxs pointer). Later sq_wr_avail accounting in srpt_queue_response() or srpt_write_pending() can then subtract the wrong number of send queue credits. Reset the counters and clear rw_ctxs after freeing the heap allocation before returning an error.

CVE-2026-52986CVSS 9.8In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: netfilter: nf_conntrack_sip: don't use simple_strtoul Replace unsafe port parsing in epaddr_len(), ct_sip_parse_header_uri(), and ct_sip_parse_request() with a new sip_parse_port() helper that validates each digit against the buffer limit, eliminating the use of simple_strtoul() which assumes NUL-terminated strings. The previous code dereferenced pointers without bounds checks after sip_parse_addr() and relied on simple_strtoul() on non-NUL-terminated skb data. A port that reaches the buffer limit without a trailing character is also rejected as malformed. Also get rid of all simple_strtoul() usage in conntrack, prefer a stricter version instead. There are intentional changes: - Bail out if number is > UINT_MAX and indicate a failure, same for too long sequences. While we do accept 05535 as port 5535, we will not accept e.g. 'sip:10.0.0.1:005060'. While its syntactically valid under RFC 3261, we should restrict this to not waste cycles when presented with malformed packets with 64k '0' characters. - Force base 10 in ct_sip_parse_numerical_param(). This is used to fetch 'expire=' and 'rports='; both are expected to use base-10. - In nf_nat_sip.c, only accept the parsed value if its within the 1k-64k range. - epaddr_len now returns 0 if the port is invalid, as it already does for invalid ip addresses. This is intentional. nf_conntrack_sip performs lots of guesswork to find the right parts of the message to parse. Being stricter could break existing setups. Connection tracking helpers are designed to allow traffic to pass, not to block it. Based on an earlier patch from Jenny Guanni Qu <qguanni@gmail.com>.

CVE-2026-63993CVSS 9.8In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: vxlan: do not reuse cached ip_hdr() value after skb_tunnel_check_pmtu() skb_tunnel_check_pmtu() can change skb->head. Reusing old_iph afer skb_tunnel_check_pmtu() can cause an UAF. Use instead ip_hdr(skb) as done in drivers/net/bareudp.c and drivers/net/geneve.c. Found by Sashiko.

CVE-2026-64046CVSS 9.8In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: tls: prevent chain-after-chain in plain text SG Sashiko points out that if end = 0 (start != 0) the current code will create a chain link to content type right after the wrap link: This would create a chain where the wrap link points directly to another chain link. The scatterlist API sg_next iterator does not recursively resolve consecutive chain links. meaning this is illegal input to crypto. The wrapping link is unnecessary if end = 0. end is the entry after the last one used so end = 0 means there's nothing pushed after the wrap: end start i v v v [ ]...[ ][ d ][ d ][ d ][ d ][rsv for wrap] Skip the wrapping in this case. TLS 1.3 can use the "wrapping slot" for it's chaining if end = 0. This avoids the chain-after-chain. Move the wrap chaining before marking END and chaining off content type, that feels like more logical ordering to me, but should not matter from functional perspective.

CVE-2026-64055CVSS 9.8In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: ethernet: cortina: Carry over frag counter The gmac_rx() NAPI poll function assembles packets in an SKB from a ring buffer. If the ring buffer gets completely emptied during a poll cycle, we exit gmac_rx(), but the packet is not yet completely assembled in the SKB, yet the fragment counter frag_nr is reset to zero on the next invocation. Solve this by making the RX fragment counter a part of the port struct, and carry it over between invocations. Reset the fragment counter only right after calling napi_gro_frags(), on error (after calling napi_free_frags()) or if stopping the port. Reset it in some place where not strictly necessary just to emphasize what is going on. This was found by Sashiko during normal patch review.

References

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