CVE-2026-98259

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

fs/dax: check zero or empty entry before converting xarray entry

Calling dax_to_folio() with empty entry causes kernel panic below when
booting a VM with DAX enabled storage.

This patch checks empty entry before calling dax_to_folio() on
dax_associate_entry(), dax_disassociate_entry(), and dax_busy_page().

Commit 98c183a4fccf ("fs/dax: don't disassociate zero page entries") added
guards in the associate and disassociate paths, but the guards still come
after dax_to_folio(), and dax_busy_page() still has the same problem.

[    0.737679] EXT4-fs (pmem0p1): mounted filesystem 79676804-7c8b-491a-b2a6-9bae3c72af70 ro with ordered data mode. Quota mode: disabled.
[    0.737891] VFS: Mounted root (ext4 filesystem) readonly on device 259:1.
[    0.739119] devtmpfs: mounted
[    0.739476] Freeing unused kernel memory: 1920K
[    0.740156] Run /sbin/init as init process
[    0.740229]   with arguments:
[    0.740286]     /sbin/init
[    0.740321]   with environment:
[    0.740369]     HOME=/
[    0.740400]     TERM=linux
[    0.743162] Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address fffffdffbf000008
[    0.743285] Mem abort info:
[    0.743316]   ESR = 0x0000000096000006
[    0.743371]   EC = 0x25: DABT (current EL), IL = 32 bits
[    0.743444]   SET = 0, FnV = 0
[    0.743489]   EA = 0, S1PTW = 0
[    0.743545]   FSC = 0x06: level 2 translation fault
[    0.743610] Data abort info:
[    0.743656]   ISV = 0, ISS = 0x00000006, ISS2 = 0x00000000
[    0.743720]   CM = 0, WnR = 0, TnD = 0, TagAccess = 0
[    0.743785]   GCS = 0, Overlay = 0, DirtyBit = 0, Xs = 0
[    0.743848] swapper pgtable: 4k pages, 48-bit VAs, pgdp=00000000b9d17000
[    0.743931] [fffffdffbf000008] pgd=10000000bfa3d403, p4d=10000000bfa3d403, pud=1000000040bfe403, pmd=0000000000000000
[    0.744070] Internal error: Oops: 0000000096000006 [#1]  SMP
[    0.748888] CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 1 Comm: init Not tainted 6.18.4 #1 NONE
[    0.749421] pstate: 004000c5 (nzcv daIF +PAN -UAO -TCO -DIT -SSBS BTYPE=--)
[    0.749969] pc : dax_disassociate_entry.constprop.0+0x20/0x50
[    0.750444] lr : dax_insert_entry+0xcc/0x408
[    0.750802] sp : ffff80008000b9e0
[    0.751083] x29: ffff80008000b9e0 x28: 0000000000000000 x27: 0000000000000000
[    0.751682] x26: 0000000001963d01 x25: ffff0000004f7d90 x24: 0000000000000000
[    0.752264] x23: 0000000000000000 x22: ffff80008000bcc8 x21: 0000000000000011
[    0.752836] x20: ffff80008000ba90 x19: 0000000001963d01 x18: 0000000000000000
[    0.753407] x17: 0000000000000000 x16: 0000000000000000 x15: 0000000000000000
[    0.753970] x14: ffffbf3154b9ae70 x13: 0000000000000000 x12: ffffbf3154b9ae70
[    0.754548] x11: ffffffffffffffff x10: 0000000000000000 x9 : 0000000000000000
[    0.755122] x8 : 000000000000000d x7 : 000000000000001f x6 : 0000000000000000
[    0.755707] x5 : 0000000000000000 x4 : 0000000000000000 x3 : fffffdffc0000000
[    0.756287] x2 : 0000000000000008 x1 : 0000000040000000 x0 : fffffdffbf000000
[    0.756871] Call trace:
[    0.757107]  dax_disassociate_entry.constprop.0+0x20/0x50 (P)
[    0.757592]  dax_iomap_pte_fault+0x4fc/0x808
[    0.757951]  dax_iomap_fault+0x28/0x30
[    0.758258]  ext4_dax_huge_fault+0x80/0x2dc
[    0.758594]  ext4_dax_fault+0x10/0x3c
[    0.758892]  __do_fault+0x38/0x12c
[    0.759175]  __handle_mm_fault+0x530/0xcf0
[    0.759518]  handle_mm_fault+0xe4/0x230
[    0.759833]  do_page_fault+0x17c/0x4dc
[    0.760144]  do_translation_fault+0x30/0x38
[    0.760483]  do_mem_abort+0x40/0x8c
[    0.760771]  el0_ia+0x4c/0x170
[    0.761032]  el0t_64_sync_handler+0xd8/0xdc
[    0.761371]  el0t_64_sync+0x168/0x16c
[    0.761677] Code: f9453021 f2dfbfe3 cb813080 8b001860 (f9400401)
[    0.762168] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---
[    0.762550] note: init[1] exited with irqs disabled
[    0.762631] Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init! exitcode=0x0000000b