Executive brief
A vulnerability in the Linux kernel's Amlogic A4 pin controller driver can cause a system deadlock. This occurs when a user or process attempts to read specific hardware configuration information through the system's file interface. If triggered, the system may become unresponsive, leading to a denial of service.
Technical details
A deadlock exists in the Amlogic A4 pinctrl driver (drivers/pinctrl/meson/pinctrl-amlogic-a4.c) within the Linux kernel. The issue occurs because pinconf_pins_show() acquires the pctldev->mutex, and subsequently calls functions like aml_pinconf_get_pull() which invoke pinctrl_find_gpio_range_from_pin(). This secondary function attempts to acquire the same mutex, resulting in a recursive deadlock. An attacker with local access to the sysfs interface could trigger this to cause a Denial of Service (DoS). The fix involves using the non-locking variant pinctrl_find_gpio_range_from_pin_nolock() within the driver's callback functions.
Affected products
- Linux Linux 6.15 to 7.1
Timeline
- 2026-04-22: other: Patch authored
- 2026-07-25: advisory: CVE published