[CVE-2026-45872][LOW] scsi: smartpqi: Fix memory leak in pqi_report_phys_luns() [ Upstream

[AL-KERNEL <alkernel@kernelcve.org>]

CVE: CVE-2026-45872
Priority: LOW
AL-KERNEL base severity: LOW
KPANIC flag: NO
Patch: scsi: smartpqi: Fix memory leak in pqi_report_phys_luns() [ Upstream
Commit: f471ecfec093e39ef8fd08978413793087daa14d
Upstream patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=f471ecfec093e39ef8fd08978413793087daa14d
Original CVE announcement: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-45872
Analysis date: Wed, 27 May 2026 23:41:48 -0400
ActionableScore: 1
ActionableScore lower bound: 0
Actionable bucket: Ordinary Moderate / Low-like
Manual review required: NO

Summary:
A smartpqi physical LUN reporting error path can leak the `rpl_list` buffer on unsupported formats or allocation failure, causing low-risk local resource exhaustion.

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ABOUT THIS REPORT
======================================================================

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-45872 is available here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-45872

The original announcement does not normally provide a security severity
estimate, CVSS assessment, or enough information to determine whether the
reported kernel bug represents a practically relevant security issue.

This report was generated by AL-KERNEL, an AI-assisted Linux kernel
vulnerability analysis system developed by Alexander Larkin. It combines
an autonomous classifier with LLM-assisted technical analysis and a
separate ActionableScore mechanism.

The purpose of this report is to prioritize Linux kernel CVEs before
manual review, identify cases that require prompt investigation, and
support automatic closure of issues that are unlikely to have meaningful
security impact.

Published priority for this report: LOW
Manual review required: NO

A detailed explanation of the methodology and priority rules is included
at the end of this message.

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AL-KERNEL CLASSIFICATION RESULT
======================================================================

CVE-2026-45872	LOW	CHECK	Maybe valid. Check manually. Hints by AL-KERNEL: The best (paranoid) CVSS is 'AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H';*CWE-401;*CWE-772;**CWE-400;Other CVSS 'AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L';BEST CVSS score: '4.1';DESCR 'The smartpqi physical LUN reporting path can leak the rpl_list buffer when the controller returns an unsupported report format or when allocation of the converted 16 byte WWID list fails. Reliable triggering usually requires privileged storage management, repeated device probe or rescan error paths, or a controller or firmware behavior that returns the problematic format. For the CVSS the PR:H is used because ordinary local users normally cannot control smartpqi discovery or firmware responses. The issue is not network reachable. Impact is limited to availability through kernel memory leakage after repeated failures. No supported evidence indicates information disclosure, integrity impact, kernel memory corruption, or privilege escalation.';NO MANUAL CHECK; ,and ActionableScore result is Ordinary Moderate / Low-like (with actual score 1) 	MAYBE	INIT NOMEMCHK LEAK ERRORPATH UAF HARDWARE TEST  DECREASED_TO_LOW_FROM_MODERATE_BASED_ON_GUESSCVSS_AND_CIANNH	-	-	checked

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ACTIONABLESCORE ANALYSIS
======================================================================

ActionableScore=1
ActionableScoreLower=0

## 1. ActionableScore

* Conservative score: 0
* Paranoid score: 1
* Final recommended bucket: **Ordinary Moderate / Low-like**::

## 2. Signal breakdown

* Availability impact realistic: +1 in paranoid scoring
  Repeated failures can leak `rpl_list` buffers and may eventually contribute to kernel memory pressure.

* Requires privileged storage management or firmware behavior: -2 conservative
  Reliable triggering generally requires device probe/rescan paths, controller behavior returning an unsupported RPL format, or memory allocation failure during storage discovery.

* Rare/configuration-dependent subsystem: -1 conservative
  This affects the smartpqi SCSI driver and specific physical LUN reporting error paths.

* No memory corruption: +0
  This is a missing `kfree()` on early returns, not UAF, double-free, OOB write, or arbitrary write.

* Firmware-mediated influence not counted as strong exposure: +0
  A controller returning a problematic format can trigger the leak, but the effect remains a small local kernel memory leak, not a DMA or code-execution primitive.

* No confidentiality or integrity impact: +0
  The patch does not indicate data disclosure, storage metadata corruption, or privilege escalation.

## 3. Reachability analysis

The bug is reachable during smartpqi physical LUN discovery if the controller returns an unsupported report format, or if allocation of the converted LUN list fails. Ordinary local users typically cannot control this path. Triggering is tied to hardware/controller behavior, administrative rescan/probe activity, or memory pressure.

The issue is not network reachable. Containers and namespaces do not materially change access unless raw storage device management is delegated to untrusted tenants.

## 4. Severity interpretation

This behaves like Low or ordinary Moderate resource leakage. The realistic impact is kernel memory leak on uncommon storage discovery error paths. There is no evidence of memory corruption, information disclosure, privilege escalation, or remote exploitability.

## 5. One-sentence report phrase

A smartpqi physical LUN reporting error path can leak the `rpl_list` buffer on unsupported formats or allocation failure, causing low-risk local resource exhaustion.

## 6. Manual review recommendation

NO MANUAL CHECK NEEDED

The issue is a driver-specific error-path memory leak with no unprivileged trigger, no remote reachability, and no memory corruption primitive.

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UPSTREAM PATCH SUMMARY
======================================================================

Patch: scsi: smartpqi: Fix memory leak in pqi_report_phys_luns() [ Upstream
Commit: f471ecfec093e39ef8fd08978413793087daa14d
Upstream URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=f471ecfec093e39ef8fd08978413793087daa14d

Changed files:
  drivers/scsi/smartpqi/smartpqi_init.c

Diff excerpt:

Not included in this email. See the upstream URL for the full patch.

Full patch:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=f471ecfec093e39ef8fd08978413793087daa14d

======================================================================
DETAILED REPORT METHODOLOGY
======================================================================

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-45872 can be found here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-45872

The original CVE announcement normally does not include a security-level
estimate. In particular, it may not contain a CVSS assessment, an impact
level, or enough information to determine whether the reported bug is a
practically relevant security issue. One purpose of this parallel CVE list
is to provide that missing technical and prioritization information.

The original goal of the AL-KERNEL project was to prioritize Linux kernel
CVE analysis automatically before manual review. The system can also help
identify non-security issues that may be suitable for automatic closure.

This report was generated by AL-KERNEL, an AI-assisted Linux kernel
vulnerability analysis system developed by Alexander Larkin.

The first analysis stage combines an autonomous classifier with additional
LLM-based analysis. The autonomous classifier runs locally on a CPU and is
based on a backpropagation neural network. Together, these mechanisms
produce a technical vulnerability description, identify likely weakness
types, estimate CVSS severity, and provide input for ActionableScore.

Two CVSS estimates are retained because incomplete kernel vulnerability
information often permits more than one defensible interpretation:

  Conservative CVSS vector: AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
  The Best / paranoid CVSS vector: AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
  The Best / paranoid CVSS score: 4.1

The conservative vector represents a lower-impact interpretation.
The Best/paranoid vector intentionally represents a plausible upper-bound
interpretation and should not automatically be treated as demonstrated
real-world impact.

CVSS may also need to be adjusted for a particular Linux deployment,
because actual reachability, privileges, enabled kernel configuration,
hardware, namespaces, exposed device nodes, and other environmental
conditions can differ significantly between systems.

A separate ActionableScore mechanism evaluates practical remediation
urgency. Its analysis may include reachability, attack prerequisites,
subsystem exposure, memory-corruption characteristics, denial-of-service
reliability, and possible confidentiality, integrity, or
privilege-escalation impact.

  Conservative ActionableScore: 0
  Paranoid ActionableScore: 1

The final base severity is taken directly from the second tab-separated
field of the AL-KERNEL classification result. ActionableScore does not
replace or independently override that final AL-KERNEL decision, and
if ActionableScore adjusted impact level of ALKERNEL, then you would see
self-readable flags above like INCREASED_TO_HIGH_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCOREHIGHEREQTHAN7.

For an AL-KERNEL result of MODERATE, this report uses the following
additional presentation split:

  ActionableScore below 5   -> MODERATE REGULAR
  ActionableScore 5 or more -> MODERATE 7.0

The distinction between MODERATE REGULAR and MODERATE 7.0 makes it
possible to identify Moderate issues that should receive manual analysis
and fixes before lower-priority MODERATE REGULAR issues. In many cases,
MODERATE REGULAR fixes may wait for a later rebase or routine update.

There is one override in which MODERATE REGULAR becomes MODERATE 7.0
even when the ActionableScore is below 5. When the AL-KERNEL result
contains the KPANIC flag, a MODERATE result is always presented as
MODERATE 7.0. The KPANIC flag selected with few regexps without
usage of AI at all, so it helps to detect cases when Kernel Crash happens
and similar (to filter False-Negative results from the LLM usage).

KPANIC indicates that a reliable kernel crash, kernel panic, or similarly
serious kernel availability impact was identified by the classification
workflow.

AL-KERNEL base severity for this report: LOW
KPANIC detected for this report: NO
Published priority for this report (same as in Subject): LOW

These results are intended to support engineering triage. They are
machine-generated estimates, and cases marked for manual review should
be validated by a human security engineer before final disposition.
For more info read docs linked from here: https://kernelcve.org/
(and you can submit you own patch there to generate such a report
for non-existant CVE-id yet).

Note that in many cases this AI tool selects higher severity, than
real is (means you can expect Importants instead of Moderate 7.0 or
Moderates 7.0 instead of regular Moderates). If you see such cases,
please use reply email interface to add additional manual analyses
info to this particular CVE.
And please, please, let me know when you see Lows instead of Importants
or Important instead of Low (because particular for such cases I
need to tune this AI tool to make it better for this one and next similar).
My contact email for such notifications is alexanjelausa@gmail.com (and both
send reply to CVE record itself too and see "reply" button below for howto reply).