dm: fix a buffer overflow in ioctl processing
CVE-2026-46294

Currently unrated

Key Information:

Vendor

Linux

Status
Vendor
CVE Published:
8 June 2026

What is CVE-2026-46294?

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

dm: fix a buffer overflow in ioctl processing

Tony Asleson (using Claude) found a buffer overflow in dm-ioctl in the function retrieve_status:

  1. The code in retrieve_status checks that the output string fits into the output buffer and writes the output string there
  2. Then, the code aligns the "outptr" variable to the next 8-byte boundary: outptr = align_ptr(outptr);
  3. The alignment doesn't check overflow, so outptr could point past the buffer end
  4. The "for" loop is iterated again, it executes: remaining = len - (outptr - outbuf);
  5. If "outptr" points past "outbuf + len", the arithmetics wraps around and the variable "remaining" contains unusually high number
  6. With "remaining" being high, the code writes more data past the end of the buffer

Luckily, this bug has no security implications because:

  1. Only root can issue device mapper ioctls
  2. The commonly used libraries that communicate with device mapper (libdevmapper and devicemapper-rs) use buffer size that is aligned to 8 bytes - thus, "outptr = align_ptr(outptr)" can't overshoot the input buffer and the bug can't happen accidentally

Affected Version(s)

Linux 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2

Linux 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 < 448ee8fb79c26a26599ffa4b2adeb4322d3d3d8c

Linux 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 < 526ff9126a0ae087b65726e1faf31114c718020d

References

Timeline

  • Vulnerability published

  • Vulnerability Reserved

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