CVE-2026-81005ipmi: si: Fix NULL pointer dereference after failed registration

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ipmi: si: Fix NULL pointer dereference after failed registration try_smi_init() allocates new_smi->si_sm and later calls ipmi_register_smi_mod(), which maps to ipmi_add_smi(). During ipmi_add_smi(), the upper IPMI message handler obtains the initial BMC device information through __bmc_get_device_id(). This can fail if the BMC does not return a successful response to the Get Device ID command. When the BMC returns a nonzero completion code, the device-id helper retries the command and eventually returns -EIO if the device ID still cannot be fetched. On this failure path, ipmi_add_smi() logs "Unable to get the device id" and goes to out_err_started, where it invokes the lower driver's shutdown callback. try_smi_init() then logs the returned registration failure: ipmi_si IPI0001:00: IPMI message handler: Unable to get the device id: -5 ipmi_si IPI0001:00: Unable to register device: error -5 For ipmi_si, the shutdown callback is shutdown_smi(), which cleans up the SI state machine data, frees smi_info->si_sm, and sets smi_info->si_sm and smi_info->intf to NULL. However, intf->in_shutdown is not set on this failed-registration rollback path. Therefore, the asynchronous redo_bmc_reg work item can still retry BMC device-id probing after the lower driver has already cleared its SI state machine data. In the observed case, that retry path reached start_next_msg(), which passed the NULL smi_info->si_sm pointer to the selected KCS state machine handler: BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at 0000000000000000 Workqueue: events redo_bmc_reg [ipmi_msghandler] RIP: start_kcs_transaction+0x2c/0x190 [ipmi_si] Call Trace: start_next_msg+0x50/0x80 [ipmi_si] check_start_timer_thread.part.9+0x3b/0x50 [ipmi_si] sender+0x69/0x80 [ipmi_si] i_ipmi_request+0x2ac/0x9d0 [ipmi_msghandler] __get_device_id.isra.29+0xaa/0x180 [ipmi_msghandler] __bmc_get_device_id+0xef/0x950 [ipmi_msghandler] redo_bmc_reg+0x52/0x60 [ipmi_msghandler] process_one_work+0x1a7/0x360 Set intf->in_shutdown on the out_err_started path before invoking the lower driver's shutdown callback. This prevents later redo_bmc_reg retries from using an interface whose lower driver state has been cleaned up, and applies the same shutdown state to other IPMI interfaces as well.

CVSS

Not yet scored

Weakness (CWE)

Not given

Known exploited

Not in CISA's KEV catalog

EPSS (exploitation in the next 30 days)

Not loaded for this CVE

Assigned by

Linux

NVD analysis

Received

Record last updated

Sep 14, 2026

First seen by InfoSec Signals

Oct 9, 2026

The CVE record on cve.org · NVD's entry

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