CVE-2026-90138 — vsock: don't check the listener's sk_err in vsock_accept()

Affected: Linux

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

vsock: don't check the listener's sk_err in vsock_accept()

Syzbot reported an issue which can be reproduced with these steps: r0 = socket(AF_VSOCK, SOCK_STREAM, 0) bind(r0, {VMADDR_CID_ANY, PORT}) connect(r0, {VMADDR_CID_LOCAL, PORT}) -> -1, EPROTO (self-connect) listen(r0, backlog) -> 0 r1 = socket(AF_VSOCK, SOCK_STREAM, 0) connect(r1, {VMADDR_CID_LOCAL, PORT}) -> 0 accept(r0) -> -1, EPROTO (stale sk_err)

Basically, it creates a socket (r0) and triggers a self-connect after binding it. This self-connect fails with EPROTO because it loops back to r0 while the socket is still in the TCP_SYN_SENT state, causing it to be incorrectly dispatched to the connecting-client path. The unexpected packet type encountered there sets sk_err to EPROTO.

After that, it invokes a listen() call on the same socket. This listen() call succeeds because the kernel's listening path never inspects or clears sk_err. Then, a new socket (r1) is created as a normal client and connects to r0. However, vsock_accept() rejects this incoming connection because the listener's sk_err still holds the EPROTO error from the earlier failed self-connect.

This rejection causes the child socket created for r1's connection to never be freed on virtio or hyperv transports; only the VMCI transport implements pending_work to revisit and clean up a rejected socket.

For a non-blocking connect(), vso…

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CVE-2026-90138 — vsock: don't check the listener's sk_err in vsock_accept()