Reference page — cumulative record through Sunday, October 4, 2026 UTC. Reference pages update as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record.
CVE-2026-43288
Linux Linux — ext4: move ext4_percpu_param_init() before ext4_mb_init()
AV AC PR UI S C I A CVSS EPSS %ile KEV
L L L N U N N H 5.5 .0017 6.0 —
AFFECTED
Product Versions Fixed
Linux d5e03cbb0c88cd1be39f2adc37d602230045964b – —
Linux 3.17 – 6.1.188
TIMELINE
May 1 Reserved by Linux
May 8 Published (CNA: Linux)
Sep 14 ENRICHED — CVE-2026-43288 (Linux). Received CVSS 5.5 and CPE data from NVD.
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ext4: move ext4_percpu_param_init() before ext4_mb_init()
When running `kvm-xfstests -c ext4/1k -C 1 generic/383` with the
`DOUBLE_CHECK` macro defined, the following panic is triggered:
==================================================================
EXT4-fs error (device vdc): ext4_validate_block_bitmap:423:
comm mount: bg 0: bad block bitmap checksum
BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ff110000fa2cc000
PGD 3e01067 P4D 3e02067 PUD 0
Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI
CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 2386 Comm: mount Tainted: G W
6.18.0-gba65a4e7120a-dirty #1152 PREEMPT(none)
RIP: 0010:percpu_counter_add_batch+0x13/0xa0
Call Trace:
<TASK>
ext4_mark_group_bitmap_corrupted+0xcb/0xe0
ext4_validate_block_bitmap+0x2a1/0x2f0
ext4_read_block_bitmap+0x33/0x50
mb_group_bb_bitmap_alloc+0x33/0x80
ext4_mb_add_groupinfo+0x190/0x250
ext4_mb_init_backend+0x87/0x290
ext4_mb_init+0x456/0x640
__ext4_fill_super+0x1072/0x1680
ext4_fill_super+0xd3/0x280
get_tree_bdev_flags+0x132/0x1d0
vfs_get_tree+0x29/0xd0
vfs_cmd_create+0x59/0xe0
__do_sys_fsconfig+0x4f6/0x6b0
do_syscall_64+0x50/0x1f0
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e
==================================================================
This issue can be reproduced using the following commands:
mkfs.ext4 -F -q -b 1024 /dev/sda 5G
tune2fs -O quota,project /dev/sda
mount /dev/sda /tmp/test
With DOUBLE_CHECK defined, mb_group_bb_bitmap_alloc() reads
and validates the block bitmap. When the validation fails,
ext4_mark_group_bitmap_corrupted() attempts to update
sbi->s_freeclusters_counter. However, this percpu_counter has not been
initialized yet at this point, which leads to the panic described above.
Fix this by moving the execution of ext4_percpu_param_init() to occur
before ext4_mb_init(), ensuring the per-CPU counters are initialized
before they are used.
Lifecycle
Complete event history — 3 events, chronological
| Date | Event | Detail |
| May 1, 2026 | Reserved | Reserved by Linux |
| May 8, 2026 | Published | Published (CNA: Linux) |
| September 14, 2026 | ENRICHED | ENRICHED — CVE-2026-43288 (Linux). Received CVSS 5.5 and CPE data from NVD. |
Affected
Affected products and packages — 2 rows
| Vendor | Product / Package | Ecosystem | Version introduced | Fixed |
| Linux | Linux | — | d5e03cbb0c88cd1be39f2adc37d602230045964b | — |
| Linux | Linux | — | 3.17 | 6.1.188 |
About this page
This is a reference page, not a dated page of record. It assembles the complete lifecycle of CVE-2026-43288 from the CVE Program record, NVD enrichment, the CISA KEV catalog, EPSS, and OSV advisories. The box score's numbers (CVSS, EPSS, KEV status) are current as of Sunday, October 4, 2026 UTC and are re-derived as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record. The authoritative source for this identifier is cve.org.