CVE-2026-98953

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

devlink: fix devlink rel reference leak when notify work is pending

devlink rel nested in notify work schedule() takes a reference on the devlink rel for the notify work and then queues the work, ignoring the return value of schedule delayed work(). If the work is already pending, nothing new is queued, the work runs only once and drops only one reference, so the extra one is leaked together with the devlink rel and its index in devlink rels.

This is easy to hit. devl register() of a nested instance queues the work, and if the instance is unregistered before the work has run, devlink rel put() queues it again while it is still pending. The work also keeps rescheduling itself for as long as the parent devlink lock cannot be taken, which widens the window. Registering and unregistering a nested devlink instance 100 times while holding the parent lock leaks all 100 devlink rel objects.

The reschedule path in devlink rel nested in notify work() has the same problem: if the work was queued again while it was running, the reference it holds is never dropped.

Drop the reference in both places when the work was already pending. The pending work holds its own reference, so this can not be the last one.