CVE-2026-90338 — serial: amba-pl011: keep console clock enabled for atomic writes

Affected: Linux

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

serial: amba-pl011: keep console clock enabled for atomic writes

pl011_console_write_atomic() runs from nbcon atomic context, where sleeping is not allowed. It calls clk_enable(), which takes the common-clk enable_lock. Under PREEMPT_RT that is a sleeping lock: clk_enable_lock() first tries spin_trylock_irqsave(), but on contention falls back to spin_lock_irqsave(). Therefore, an atomic-context printk on an RT kernel with a clk-backed pl011 can trip:

BUG: sleeping function called from invalid context at spinlock_rt.c:48 __might_resched from rt_spin_lock rt_spin_lock from clk_enable_lock clk_enable_lock from clk_enable clk_enable from pl011_console_write_atomic ... from vprintk_emit

This was found and reproduced on PREEMPT_RT. Arm32 and arm64 DT SoCs are affected; arm64 SBSA/ACPI has no clk, so clk_enable(NULL) short-circuits before the lock. In addition, write_atomic() may be invoked from NMI context and is documented to avoid locking. Removing clk_enable() from the callback also avoids a potentially unsafe NMI acquisition of the common-clock enable_lock.

An nbcon atomic-capable console must be printable from any context, so the clock cannot be gated between writes. Enable the clock while the console is available for output: use clk_prepare_enable() in pl011_console_setup(), release it via clk_disable_unprepare() in the console .exit() callback, and drop the per-write clk_enable()/…

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CVE-2026-90338 — serial: amba-pl011: keep console clock enabled for atomic writes