CVE-2024-46787
userfaultfd: fix checks for huge PMDs
Reported by linux · Published September 18, 2024
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.
Risk scores
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| Linux | Linux | c1a4de99fada21e2e9251e52cbb51eff5aadc757, c1a4de99fada21e2e9251e52cbb51eff5aadc757, c1a4de99fada21e2e9251e52cbb51eff5aadc757 |
| Linux | Linux | 4.3, 0, 6.1.191 |
| linux | linux_kernel | 4.3, 4.3, 4.3 |
| Linux | Linux | *, *, * |
Timeline
- Sep 17, 2024 CVE Published
- Sep 19, 2024 EPSS Score (30 in total, the first dated here)
- Oct 5, 2024 Coalition ESS Score (9 in total, the first dated here)
- Dec 16, 2025 PoC Published
- Jan 4, 2026 Security Advisory (214 in total, the first dated here)
- Apr 29, 2026 Distribution Patch (199 in total, the first dated here)
- Oct 30, 2026 CVE Updated
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