Daily update · Aug 23, 2026
Linux 7.3 merge window: SMB hardening, EFI timeouts, and new I3C support
Highlights from the latest mainline pull requests, including SMB server replay protection, EFI runtime service timeouts, and a new AMD I3C controller driver.
In brief
This batch of mainline merges brings protocol hardening for the in-kernel SMB server, a timeout mechanism for EFI runtime services, and a new AMD I3C controller driver. Also included are s390 cpuidle and kCFI support, MTD NAND additions, and improvements to HugeTLB with kexec handover.
Bug fixes
OCFS2 and taskstats hardening
The non-MM pull request validates bounds for OCFS2 cluster messages and xattr entries, preventing memory corruption from malformed data, and fixes cgroupstats to return -EBADF on invalid file descriptors.
Why it matters: Hardens OCFS2 against malformed data and corrects taskstats error handling.
TPM trusted key teardown fix
A single fix corrects the ordering of TPM teardown in the trusted key code.
Why it matters: Avoids potential cleanup issues with trusted keys.
Highlights
SMB server gains replay protection and command sequencing
The ksmbd server now enforces a credit-based MessageId window, rejecting out-of-window, duplicate, and wrapped sequence numbers, and adds SMB3 request replay support. The update also includes SMB Direct transport and Apple Time Machine interoperability improvements.
Why it matters: Strengthens the in-kernel SMB server against replay attacks and improves protocol compliance.
EFI runtime services get a timeout
EFI updates add a timeout for runtime service completions, declare the firmware wedged if it is exceeded, rate-limit efivarfs statfs(), and validate the Apple properties header size.
Why it matters: Prevents the kernel from hanging indefinitely on unresponsive EFI firmware.
New AMD AXI I3C controller and DDR5 SPD support
The I3C subsystem adds a driver for the AMD AXI I3C master controller, plus IBI wakeup, SETAASA device discovery, and ACPI support for DAA methods, enabling communication with SPD devices on DDR5 modules.
Why it matters: Enables newer AMD platforms to access DDR5 memory SPD data over I3C.
s390 adds cpuidle driver and kCFI support
s390 gains a cpuidle driver with polling and enabled wait states, removes the old tick delay heuristic, and adds Clang kCFI support along with lock annotations for CONTEXT_ANALYSIS.
Why it matters: Improves idle latency and enables finer-grained control-flow integrity on s390.
MTD adds NAND support for new SoCs and chips
Raw NAND gains support for Sunxi H616, Qualcomm MDM9607, and a Toshiba part, while SPI NAND adds FM25G01/02 and HeYangTek HYF1GQ4UDACAE chips.
Why it matters: Expands Linux support for NAND flash on embedded platforms.
HugeTLB and kexec handover improvements
The liveupdate pull request makes boot-time gigantic page allocation work with kexec handover by extending early memory pools, fixing a failure when huge pages occupy a large fraction of memory.
Why it matters: Improves reliability of kexec handover with HugeTLB gigantic pages.
Source commits612 entries +
MAINTAINERS: update btrfs git tree entries
David Sterba · Aug 19, 2026 · 1 files
Merge tag 'mm-nonmm-stable-2026-08-22-16-57' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/akpm/mm
Linus Torvalds · Aug 23, 2026 · 85 files
Merge tag 'for-next-keys-v7.3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jarkko/linux-tpmdd
Linus Torvalds · Aug 23, 2026 · 1 files
Merge tag 'ksmbd-for-7.3-rc1' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/linkinjeon/smb
Linus Torvalds · Aug 23, 2026 · 49 files
Merge tag 'mtd/for-7.3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mtd/linux
Linus Torvalds · Aug 23, 2026 · 30 files
Merge tag 'liveupdate-v7.3-rc1-20260823' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/liveupdate/linux
Linus Torvalds · Aug 23, 2026 · 21 files
Merge tag 'efi-next-for-v7.3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/efi/efi
Linus Torvalds · Aug 23, 2026 · 6 files
Merge tag 's390-7.3-1' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/s390/linux
Linus Torvalds · Aug 23, 2026 · 83 files
Merge tag 'parisc-for-7.3-rc1' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/deller/parisc-linux
Linus Torvalds · Aug 23, 2026 · 7 files
Merge tag 'pci-v7.3-changes' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/pci/pci
Linus Torvalds · Aug 23, 2026 · 110 files
Merge tag 'i3c/for-7.3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/i3c/linux
Linus Torvalds · Aug 23, 2026 · 27 files