CVE-2024-46787

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Last Modified: UTC

Description

The MITRE CVE dictionary describes this issue as

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: userfaultfd: fix checks for huge PMDs Patch series "userfaultfd: fix races around pmd_trans_huge() check", v2. The pmd_trans_huge() code in mfill_atomic() is wrong in three different ways depending on kernel version: 1. The pmd_trans_huge() check is racy and can lead to a BUG_ON() (if you hit the right two race windows) - I've tested this in a kernel build with some extra mdelay() calls. See the commit message for a description of the race scenario. On older kernels (before 6.5), I think the same bug can even theoretically lead to accessing transhuge page contents as a page table if you hit the right 5 narrow race windows (I haven't tested this case). 2. As pointed out by Qi Zheng, pmd_trans_huge() is not sufficient for detecting PMDs that don't point to page tables. On older kernels (before 6.5), you'd just have to win a single fairly wide race to hit this. I've tested this on 6.1 stable by racing migration (with a mdelay() patched into try_to_migrate()) against UFFDIO_ZEROPAGE - on my x86 VM, that causes a kernel oops in ptlock_ptr(). 3. On newer kernels (>=6.5), for shmem mappings, khugepaged is allowed to yank page tables out from under us (though I haven't tested that), so I think the BUG_ON() checks in mfill_atomic() are just wrong. I decided to write two separate fixes for these (one fix for bugs 1+2, one fix for bug 3), so that the first fix can be backported to kernels affected by bugs 1+2. This patch (of 2): This fixes two issues. I discovered that the following race can occur: mfill_atomic other thread ============ ============ <zap PMD> pmdp_get_lockless() [reads none pmd] <bail if trans_huge> <if none:> <pagefault creates transhuge zeropage> __pte_alloc [no-op] <zap PMD> <bail if pmd_trans_huge(*dst_pmd)> BUG_ON(pmd_none(*dst_pmd)) I have experimentally verified this in a kernel with extra mdelay() calls; the BUG_ON(pmd_none(*dst_pmd)) triggers. On kernels newer than commit 0d940a9b270b ("mm/pgtable: allow pte_offset_map[_lock]() to fail"), this can't lead to anything worse than a BUG_ON(), since the page table access helpers are actually designed to deal with page tables concurrently disappearing; but on older kernels (<=6.4), I think we could probably theoretically race past the two BUG_ON() checks and end up treating a hugepage as a page table. The second issue is that, as Qi Zheng pointed out, there are other types of huge PMDs that pmd_trans_huge() can't catch: devmap PMDs and swap PMDs (in particular, migration PMDs). On <=6.4, this is worse than the first issue: If mfill_atomic() runs on a PMD that contains a migration entry (which just requires winning a single, fairly wide race), it will pass the PMD to pte_offset_map_lock(), which assumes that the PMD points to a page table. Breakage follows: First, the kernel tries to take the PTE lock (which will crash or maybe worse if there is no "struct page" for the address bits in the migration entry PMD - I think at least on X86 there usually is no corresponding "struct page" thanks to the PTE inversion mitigation, amd64 looks different). If that didn't crash, the kernel would next try to write a PTE into what it wrongly thinks is a page table. As part of fixing these issues, get rid of the check for pmd_trans_huge() before __pte_alloc() - that's redundant, we're going to have to check for that after the __pte_alloc() anyway. Backport note: pmdp_get_lockless() is pmd_read_atomic() in older kernels.

Additional Information

External References

Content from www.cve.org is not included.https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-46787

Content from nvd.nist.gov is not included.https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-46787

Content from lore.kernel.org is not included.https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2024091852-CVE-2024-46787-8b6d@gregkh/T

Affected Packages and Issued Red Hat Security Errata

Products / Services Components State Errata
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 kernel Not affected
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 kernel Out of support scope
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 kernel-rt Out of support scope
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 kernel Will not fix
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 kernel-rt Will not fix
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 kernel Fixed RHSA-2025:6966
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 kernel-rt Will not fix
Unless explicitly stated as not affected, all previous versions of packages in any minor update stream of a product listed here should be assumed vulnerable, although may not have been subject to full analysis.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authorities (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications ).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown Red Hat NVD
CVSS v3 Base Score 4.7 4.7
Attack Vector Local Local
Attack Complexity High High
Privileges Required Low Low
User Interaction None None
Scope Unchanged Unchanged
Confidentiality Impact None None
Integrity Impact None None
Availability Impact High High

CVSS v3 Vector

Red Hat CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

NVD CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

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Available options depend mostly on the Impact of the vulnerability and the current Life Cycle phase of your product. Overall, you have the following options:
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