Executive brief
A flaw in the Linux kernel's AMD XDNA accelerator driver can cause the system to freeze or become unresponsive. This occurs when the system tries to enter a low-power sleep state while a background task is still running, leading to a permanent "deadlock" state. This primarily impacts system availability and could be used to cause a local denial-of-service.
Technical details
A deadlock exists in the accel/amdxdna driver within the Linux kernel due to improper locking during power management transitions. The runtime suspend callback attempts to drain the job workqueue; however, if an executing job simultaneously calls pm_runtime_resume_and_get(), a circular dependency (deadlock) occurs between the suspend and resume paths. This is a local vulnerability requiring low privileges to trigger via job submission. The fix involves moving the power management resume call from the job execution routine to the job submission routine, ensuring the device is active before the job is queued. Patches have been released for affected stable branches.
Affected products
- Linux Linux Kernel 6.19 to 6.19.9, 7.0-rc1 to 7.0-rc3
Timeline
- 2026-05-08: disclosed
- 2026-03-10: patched: Initial patch authored by AMD
- 2026-05-08: advisory