CVE-2026-72166 — net/9p: fix infinite loop in p9_client_rpc on fatal signal

Affected: Linux

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

net/9p: fix infinite loop in p9_client_rpc on fatal signal

When p9_client_rpc() is called with type P9_TFLUSH and the transport has no peer (e.g. fd transport backed by pipes with no 9p server), a fatal signal causes an infinite loop:

again: err = io_wait_event_killable(req->wq, ...) /* SIGKILL wakes the task, returns -ERESTARTSYS */

if (err == -ERESTARTSYS && c->status == Connected && type == P9_TFLUSH) { sigpending = 1; clear_thread_flag(TIF_SIGPENDING); goto again; }

clear_thread_flag() clears TIF_SIGPENDING before jumping back to io_wait_event_killable(). signal_pending_state() checks TIF_SIGPENDING, finds it zero, and the task goes to sleep again. The task can only wake on the next signal delivery that calls signal_wake_up() and sets TIF_SIGPENDING again. When that happens the loop repeats, clears TIF_SIGPENDING, and sleeps again indefinitely.

This is triggered in practice by coredump_wait(): when a thread in a multi-threaded process causes a coredump (e.g. via SIGSYS from Syscall User Dispatch), coredump_wait() sends SIGKILL to all other threads and waits for them to call mm_release(). If one of those threads is blocked in p9_client_rpc() over an fd transport with no peer, it enters the P9_TFLUSH loop and never calls mm_release(), so coredump_wait() stalls forever:

INFO: task syz.0.18:676 blocked for more than 143 seconds. Not tainted 6.12.77+ #1 task:syz.0.18 state:D stack:2…

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CVE-2026-72166 — net/9p: fix infinite loop in p9_client_rpc on fatal signal