CVE-2026-97921 — tracing: Free histogram the field rejected for a bad modifier

Affected: Linux

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

tracing: Free histogram the field rejected for a bad modifier

Writing a hist trigger whose value or variable carries a modifier that is not allowed there leaks the fields that were built for it.

__create_val_field() takes the field from parse_expr() and stores it in hist_data->fields[] only after the modifier checks have run:

hist_field = parse_expr(hist_data, file, field_str, flags, var_name, &n_subexprs); ... if (hist_field->flags & HIST_FIELD_FL_VAR) { if (hist_field->flags & (...)) goto err; } else { if (hist_field->flags & (...)) goto err; }

hist_data->fields[val_idx] = hist_field;

Both checks jump past that store, and the err label returns without freeing anything. The error unwinds to create_hist_data(), which calls destroy_hist_data() -> destroy_hist_fields(), and that reaches a field only by walking fields[]. A field that never got there is unreachable.

commit e0213434fe3e ("tracing: Do not let histogram values have some modifiers") set ret to -EINVAL and fell through to the store, which left the field owned by fields[] and freed along with the rest of hist_data. Splitting the check into a value case and a variable case replaced that fall-through with a goto that skips it.

With CONFIG_DEBUG_KMEMLEAK, 200 writes of

# echo 'hist:keys=prev_pid:vals=next_pid.log2' > \ events/sched/sched_switch/trigger

each correctly rejected with -EINVAL, leave 332 unreferenced objects…

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CVE-2026-97921 — tracing: Free histogram the field rejected for a bad modifier