Skip to content
Heist/ feed
Back to feed
HighFix available

ice: Restore Ordered MMIO Writes for Tx Doorbells

Type: advisorySources: OSV

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ice: Restore Ordered MMIO Writes for Tx Doorbells The DQL accounting state which tracks the number of bytes queued for the NIC to transmit, namely dql->num_queued, is updated by the ICE driver when it invokes __netdev_tx_sent_queue(). Subsequently the driver updates the hardware queue tail allowing the NIC to begin processing the work queue. The queue accounting update should be ordered before the NIC begins transmitting descriptors. The transmit path currently updates the hardware doorbell using writel_relaxed(), which (on arm64) does not provide the same ordering guarantees between writes to normal memory and writes to MMIO registers that writel() does. This introduces a potential race where the NIC begins transmitting descriptors before the dql->num_queued update is globally visible. If the NIC finishes before the update is observed by dql_completed(), it detects an invalid state where more bytes have been completed than have been queued. When this happens the following BUG_ON is triggered. BUG_ON(count > num_queued - dql->num_completed); This has been observed and manifests as the following crash (note that the trace has been trimmed) in an environment with sustained network load that uses an Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller E810-XXV for SFP (rev 02) on an arm64 machine. Replacing writel_relaxed() with writel() in a test kernel eliminated the crash in the user's workload, which previously reproduced

Products
Kernel
Affected versions
Not specified
Fixed versions
6.18.57, 7.2.11
CVEs
CVE-2026-98965
Confirmed fixed CVEs
Not specified
Updated in this feed
3 Nov 2026, 15:21 UTC · Revision 1

Source evidence

ice: Restore Ordered MMIO Writes for Tx Doorbells

core-osv · Original source

Published 23 Oct 2026, 12:19 UTC

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ice: Restore Ordered MMIO Writes for Tx Doorbells The DQL accounting state which tracks the number of bytes queued for the NIC to transmit, namely dql->num_queued, is updated by the ICE driver when it invokes __netdev_tx_sent_queue(). Subsequently the driver updates the hardware queue tail allowing the NIC to begin processing the work queue. The queue accounting update should be ordered before the NIC begins transmitting descriptors. The transmit path currently updates the hardware doorbell using writel_relaxed(), which (on arm64) does not provide the same ordering guarantees between writes to normal memory and writes to MMIO registers that writel() does. This introduces a potential race where the NIC begins transmitting descriptors before the dql->num_queued update is globally visible. If the NIC finishes before the update is observed by dql_completed(), it detects an invalid state where more bytes have been completed than have been queued. When this happens the following BUG_ON is triggered. BUG_ON(count > num_queued - dql->num_completed); This has been observed and manifests as the following crash (note that the trace has been trimmed) in an environment with sustained network load that uses an Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller E810-XXV for SFP (rev 02) on an arm64 machine. Replacing writel_relaxed() with writel() in a test kernel eliminated the crash in the user's workload, which previously reproduced

osv:CVE-2026-98965

Kernel

Fixed versions: 6.18.57, 7.2.11

Complete source record
{
  "id": "61f2f57cd8711897b91f02dcf99975a0eaf79b059dd5412db0893ed9e19185c0",
  "url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-98965",
  "method": "structured",
  "payload": {
    "kind": "advisory",
    "title": "ice: Restore Ordered MMIO Writes for Tx Doorbells",
    "summary": "In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ice: Restore Ordered MMIO Writes for Tx Doorbells The DQL accounting state which tracks the number of bytes queued for the NIC to transmit, namely dql->num_queued, is updated by the ICE driver when it invokes __netdev_tx_sent_queue(). Subsequently the driver updates the hardware queue tail allowing the NIC to begin processing the work queue. The queue accounting update should be ordered before the NIC begins transmitting descriptors. The transmit path currently updates the hardware doorbell using writel_relaxed(), which (on arm64) does not provide the same ordering guarantees between writes to normal memory and writes to MMIO registers that writel() does. This introduces a potential race where the NIC begins transmitting descriptors before the dql->num_queued update is globally visible. If the NIC finishes before the update is observed by dql_completed(), it detects an invalid state where more bytes have been completed than have been queued. When this happens the following BUG_ON is triggered. BUG_ON(count > num_queued - dql->num_completed); This has been observed and manifests as the following crash (note that the trace has been trimmed) in an environment with sustained network load that uses an Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller E810-XXV for SFP (rev 02) on an arm64 machine. Replacing writel_relaxed() with writel() in a test kernel eliminated the crash in the user's workload, which previously reproduced ",
    "evidence": "osv:CVE-2026-98965",
    "products": [
      {
        "name": {
          "value": "Kernel",
          "evidence": "/affected/1/package/name"
        },
        "prerequisites": [],
        "fixed_versions": [
          {
            "value": "6.18.57",
            "evidence": "/affected/1/ranges"
          },
          {
            "value": "7.2.11",
            "evidence": "/affected/1/ranges"
          }
        ],
        "affected_versions": []
      }
    ],
    "severity": "high",
    "structured": {
      "id": "CVE-2026-98965",
      "aliases": [
        "CVE-2026-98965"
      ],
      "metrics": [
        {
          "type": "CVSS_V3",
          "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H"
        }
      ],
      "affected": [
        {
          "ranges": [
            {
              "repo": "https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git",
              "type": "GIT",
              "events": [
                {
                  "introduced": "ccde82e909467abdf098a8ee6f63e1ecf9a47ce5"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "b7725acf9c574debb97ae1613569ac9e148438be"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "f94ab1fffd009250d72c6dc1662cb84467ac5365"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "7a579dec8423bba7bec96fcfcb2e30838b0858ee"
                }
              ]
            }
          ],
          "database_specific": {
            "source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2026-98965.json"
          }
        },
        {
          "ranges": [
            {
              "type": "ECOSYSTEM",
              "events": [
                {
                  "introduced": "6.18.0"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "6.18.57"
                }
              ]
            },
            {
              "type": "ECOSYSTEM",
              "events": [
                {
                  "introduced": "6.19.0"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "7.2.11"
                }
              ]
            }
          ],
          "package": {
            "name": "Kernel",
            "ecosystem": "Linux"
          },
          "database_specific": {
            "source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2026-98965.json"
          }
        }
      ],
      "modified": "2026-10-28T02:30:29.721659286Z",
      "provider": "osv",
      "references": [
        "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7a579dec8423bba7bec96fcfcb2e30838b0858ee",
        "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b7725acf9c574debb97ae1613569ac9e148438be",
        "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f94ab1fffd009250d72c6dc1662cb84467ac5365",
        "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2026/98xxx/CVE-2026-98965.json",
        "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-98965",
        "https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git"
      ],
      "provider_metadata": {
        "cna_assigner": "Linux",
        "osv_generated_from": "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2026/98xxx/CVE-2026-98965.json"
      }
    },
    "related_cves": [
      {
        "value": "CVE-2026-98965",
        "evidence": "/id"
      }
    ],
    "security_relevant": true,
    "severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
  },
  "source_id": "core-osv",
  "document_id": 496772,
  "published_at": "2026-10-23T12:19:34.754+00:00"
}