Linux KernelOperating system · Linux
CVE-2026-43286
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedIn the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/hugetlb: restore failed global reservations to subpool Commit a833a693a490 ("mm: hugetlb: fix incorrect fallback for subpool") fixed an underflow error for hstate->resv_huge_pages caused by incorrectly attributing globally requested pages to the subpool's reservation. Unfortunately, this fix also introduced the opposite problem, which would leave spool->used_hpages elevated if the globally requested pages could not be acquired. This is because while a subpool's reserve pages only accounts for what is requested and allocated from the subpool, its "used" counter keeps track of what is consumed in total, both from the subpool and globally. Thus, we need to adjust spool->used_hpages in the other direction, and make sure that globally requested pages are uncharged from the subpool's used counter. Each failed allocation attempt increments the used_hpages counter by how many pages were requested from the global pool. Ultimately, this renders the subpool unusable, as used_hpages approaches the max limit. The issue can be reproduced as follows: 1. Allocate 4 hugetlb pages 2. Create a hugetlb mount with max=4, min=2 3. Consume 2 pages globally 4. Request 3 pages from the subpool (2 from subpool + 1 from global) 4.1 hugepage_subpool_get_pages(spool, 3) succeeds. used_hpages += 3 4.2 hugetlb_acct_memory(h, 1) fails: no global pages left used_hpages -= 2 5. Subpool now has used_hpages = 1, despite not being able to successfully allocate any hugepages. It believes it can now only allocate 3 more hugepages, not 4. With each failed allocation attempt incrementing the used counter, the subpool eventually reaches a point where its used counter equals its max counter. At that point, any future allocations that try to allocate hugeTLB pages from the subpool will fail, despite the subpool not having any of its hugeTLB pages consumed by any user. Once this happens, there is no way to make the subpool usable again, since there is no way to decrement the used counter as no process is really consuming the hugeTLB pages. The underflow issue that the original commit fixes still remains fixed as well. Without this fix, used_hpages would keep on leaking if hugetlb_acct_memory() fails.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysisAllocated memory is never released on some path, so a long-running service or a repeatedly triggered request steadily consumes memory until performance degrades or the process crashes. Attackers exploit it by simply driving the leaking path. Remediation is pairing every allocation with a release and using ownership patterns or tooling to catch what leaks.
General guidance for the memory leak class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data
Linux KernelOperating system
>= 6.14.8, < 6.15>= 6.15.1, < 6.18.16>= 6.19, < 6.19.6= 6.15= 7.0CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
dbcve · scoped6.156.18.166.19.6
Upgrade to kernel >= 6.15 (if using 6.15.x line) OR >= 6.18.16 (if using 6.18.x line) OR >= 6.19.6 (if using 6.19.x line) OR any later stable release
- 1. Identify the current running kernel version using 'uname -r' or 'cat /proc/version'
- 2. Check if the version matches one of the affected ranges: >= 6.14.8 and < 6.15, or >= 6.15.1 and < 6.18.16, or >= 6.19 and < 6.19.6, or exactly 6.15
- 3. For enterprise Linux distributions (RHEL, CentOS, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu), use the distribution's package manager to upgrade to a newer kernel that includes the fix
- 4. For mainline Arch Linux, run 'sudo pacman -Syu' to update to the latest kernel
- 5. For building from source, fetch the stable kernel tree containing commit 1d3f9bb4c8af70304d19c22e30f5d16a2d589bb5 or later
- 6. Reboot into the upgraded kernel
- 7. Verify the fix is applied by checking the kernel version and confirming hugetlb subpool behavior is correct
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2026-43286 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2026-43286 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
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