CVE-2026-98826

rtc: ac100: Fix clock provider use-after-free on probe failure

N/A
Published: October 18, 2026 at 03:49 PM UTC
Updated: October 19, 2026 at 10:19 AM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorLinux Kernel

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Severity
N/A
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.2%

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: rtc: ac100: Fix clock provider use-after-free on probe failure ac100_rtc_register_clks() registers the RTC-32k clock with clk_hw_register_fixed_rate() and the clock provider with of_clk_add_hw_provider(). Neither is device managed, and both are released only from ac100_rtc_remove(). The driver core does not call remove() when probe() fails: really_probe() reaches probe_failed below the device_remove() call and goes straight to releasing the device's managed resources. ac100_rtc_probe() ends with return devm_rtc_register_device(chip->rtc); so if that fails after the clocks have been registered, the provider is left on the global of_clk_providers list holding chip->clk_data, which was allocated with devm_kzalloc() and is freed while probe() unwinds. A later lookup on this device tree node then reads freed memory in of_clk_hw_onecell_get(). Consumers that do exactly that exist in tree: the wifi power sequence nodes on sun8i-a83t-bananapi-m3 and sun8i-a83t-cubietruck-plus take <&ac100_rtc 1>, and the sun9i-a80 boards route osc32k through <&ac100_rtc 0>. The window is narrow, as devm_rtc_register_device() can only fail with -ENOMEM here, but the provider is left dangling whenever it does. The RTC-32k clock is leaked on the same path. Since clk_core_lookup() searches a global list that is not scoped per device, __clk_register() rejects the duplicate name with -EEXIST, so the leak also makes a later probe of the same device fail. The error path that returns -EINVAL when the ADDA 4M parent clock cannot be found leaks the RTC-32k clock in the same way. No provider has been registered at that point, so that one is a leak rather than a use-after-free. Register both with devm_clk_hw_register_fixed_rate() and devm_of_clk_add_hw_provider() so that they are released whenever the device goes away, on a failed probe as well as on unbind. Devres releases in reverse order of acquisition, so the provider is removed before chip->clk_data is freed, and the clkout children are now unregistered before their parent rather than after it. ac100_rtc_unregister_clks() and the remove callback then have nothing left to do and are removed.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

4.9d00a18a42c1483924de086ddfb0efe8da1dba3ac
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.12.113 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.18.56 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 7.2.10 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 7.3 (unaffected)

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet, and no fixed version or vendor advisory is recorded against it.

Quick Info

StatusRECEIVED

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