CVE-2026-46165: Linux Kernel

Medium severity, CVSS 5.5. EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: openvswitch: vport: fix self-deadlock on release of tunnel ports vports are used concurrently and protected by RCU, so netdev_put() must happen after the RCU grace period. So, either in an RCU call or after the synchronize_net(). The rtnl_delete_link() must happen under RTNL and so can't be executed in RCU context. Calling synchronize_net() while holding RTNL is not a good idea for performance and system stability under load in general, so calling netdev_put() in RCU call is the right solution here. However, when the device is deleted, rtnl_unlock() will call netdev_run_todo() and block until all the references are gone. In the current code this means that we never reach the call_rcu() and the vport is never freed and the reference is never released, causing a self-deadlock on device removal. Fix that by moving the rcu_call() before the rtnl_unlock(), so the scheduled RCU callback will be executed when synchronize_net() is called from the rtnl_unlock()->netdev_run_todo() while the RTNL itself is already released.

Affected products

• Linux Linux Kernel: from 6.1.168, before 6.1.175 (fixed in 6.1.175); from 6.6.131, before 6.6.140 (fixed in 6.6.140); from 6.12.80, before 6.12.88 (fixed in 6.12.88); from 6.18.21, before 6.18.30 (fixed in 6.18.30); from 6.19.11, before 7.0 (fixed in 7.0); from 7.0.1, before 7.0.7 (fixed in 7.0.7); …

Published 2026-05-28. Last modified 2026-06-17.