VulnerabilityPublished 11 Sep 2026Updated 21 Oct 2026

CVE-2026-89647: Linux kernel · ceph: do not repeat ceph_trim_dentries() if no progress possible

Affects Linux kernelSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.5 High · fixed in e7d7aa7b730178278109c41fa1b17b06873065d5 : patch Linux kernel soon.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 13:47 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

7.5High

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS

0.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 49% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

Exploitation: No evidence of active exploitation and no public proof of concept
Automatable: Attackers can reliably automate steps 1–4 of the kill chain
Technical impact: Limited control over the software or limited information exposure

CISA SSVC assessment, 2026-10-16.

Patch

Available – fixed in e7d7aa7b730178278109c41fa1b17b06873065d5, dd2e9824e5e7dba406005ff779a107f773175a76, 37d6edb2f03b29399a3a337fae78674de51e1695 +2

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 11 Sep 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade to a fixed release listed under Affected software.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
LinuxLinux	Affected ≥ 37c4efc1ddf98ba8b234d116d863a9464445901e, < e7d7aa7b730178278109c41fa1b17b06873065d5	Fixed in e7d7aa7b730178278109c41fa1b17b06873065d5
LinuxLinux	Affected ≥ 37c4efc1ddf98ba8b234d116d863a9464445901e, < dd2e9824e5e7dba406005ff779a107f773175a76	Fixed in dd2e9824e5e7dba406005ff779a107f773175a76
LinuxLinux	Affected ≥ 37c4efc1ddf98ba8b234d116d863a9464445901e, < 37d6edb2f03b29399a3a337fae78674de51e1695	Fixed in 37d6edb2f03b29399a3a337fae78674de51e1695
LinuxLinux	Affected ≥ 37c4efc1ddf98ba8b234d116d863a9464445901e, < 5a541eb401acb89d791da41189d7a79220164b93	Fixed in 5a541eb401acb89d791da41189d7a79220164b93
LinuxLinux	Affected ≥ 37c4efc1ddf98ba8b234d116d863a9464445901e, < 3d122b2feb1dd76bb5041bdea5e1e1b007d8d415	Fixed in 3d122b2feb1dd76bb5041bdea5e1e1b007d8d415
LinuxLinux	Affected =5.1	Fixed in–

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ceph: do not repeat ceph_trim_dentries() if no progress possible ceph_cap_reclaim_work() re-queues itself for as long as ceph_trim_dentries() returns -EAGAIN, which happens whenever a lease walk exhausts its `nr_to_scan` budget. This creates a busy loop that consumes CPU without making any progress when there is nothing to reclaim: with no cap pressure (`count==0`) and every scanned lease still valid, each pass runs the full scan budget down to zero and returns `-EAGAIN`, only to be queued again immediately. The dir-lease walk made this worse. When `expire_dir_lease` is `false` (i.e. we have no intention of reclaiming dir leases), __dir_lease_check() returned `TOUCH` for every valid lease. `TOUCH` moves the dentry to the tail of the list and resets `di->time` via __dentry_dir_lease_touch(), so a walk over N valid leases pointlessly rewrote the list, refreshed the timestamps (preventing them from ever aging out) and always drained `nr_to_scan`, guaranteeing the `-EAGAIN` requeue. Fix this in three steps: - Return `KEEP` instead of `TOUCH` when `expire_dir_lease` is `false`. If we are not going to reclaim the lease, leave it in place instead of churning the list and resetting its timestamp; the walk then terminates naturally (or via `STOP` at the first fresh lease). - Only return `-EAGAIN` from the first (dentry-lease) walk when something was actually freed. A full batch that frees nothing means retrying the same list immediately is futile; fall through to the dir-lease walk instead. - After both walks, bail out with success (0) when nothing was freed and there is no cap pressure (`count==0`). There is no reason to keep retrying when we are not over the cap limit and made no progress. Under real cap pressure (`count>0`) the reclaim path is unchanged and still retries via `-EAGAIN`. Without this patch, I saw 500 ceph_trim_dentries() calls per second on our web servers. This is very visible in `/proc/lock_stat` (5 minute capture): class name con-bounces contentions waittime-min waittime-max waittime-total waittime-avg acq-bounces acquisitions holdtime-min holdtime-max holdtime-total holdtime-avg &mdsc->dentry_list_lock: 126180 128218 0.04 8063.44 15986965.20 124.69 1573354 5296812 0.04 8291.28 74164526.48 14.00 ----------------------- &mdsc->dentry_list_lock 111736 [<000000007b11e319>] __ceph_dentry_dir_lease_touch+0x7c/0xa8 &mdsc->dentry_list_lock 2631 [<0000000050597999>] __dentry_leases_walk+0x64/0x2c8 &mdsc->dentry_list_lock 3878 [<00000000c0022f62>] __ceph_dentry_lease_touch+0x5c/0xa8 &mdsc->dentry_list_lock 9973 [<000000002f27cb6f>] __dentry_lease_unlist+0x50/0xa0 ----------------------- &mdsc->dentry_list_lock 123621 [<0000000050597999>] __dentry_leases_walk+0x64/0x2c8 &mdsc->dentry_list_lock 1822 [<000000007b11e319>] __ceph_dentry_dir_lease_touch+0x7c/0xa8 &mdsc->dentry_list_lock 2720 [<000000002f27cb6f>] __dentry_lease_unlist+0x50/0xa0 &mdsc->dentry_list_lock 55 [<00000000c0022f62>] __ceph_dentry_lease_touch+0x5c/0xa8 With this patch: class name con-bounces contentions waittime-min waittime-max waittime-total waittime-avg acq-bounces acquisitions holdtime-min holdtime-max holdtime-total holdtime-avg &mdsc->dentry_list_lock: 1203 1215 0.16 408.88 33082.88 27.23 4320501 7357389 0.04 500.64 1961578.00 0.27 ----------------------- &mdsc->dentry_list_lock 1029 [<000000003c9aea8a>] __ceph_dentry_dir_lease_touch+0x7c/0xa8 &mdsc->dentry_list_lock 1 ---truncated---

References

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