In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/ioapic: Handle allocation failures gracefully Breno observed panics when using failslab under certain conditions during runtime: can not alloc irq_pin_list (-1,0,20) Kernel panic - not syncing: IO-APIC: failed to add irq-pin. Can not proceed panic+0x4e9/0x590 mp_irqdomain_alloc+0x9ab/0xa80 irq_domain_alloc_irqs_locked+0x25d/0x8d0 __irq_domain_alloc_irqs+0x80/0x110 mp_map_pin_to_irq+0x645/0x890 acpi_register_gsi_ioapic+0xe6/0x150 hpet_open+0x313/0x480 That's a pointless panic which is a leftover of the historic IO/APIC code which panic'ed during early boot when the interrupt allocation failed. The only place which might justify panic is the PIT/HPET timer_check() code which tries to figure out whether the timer…