# CVE-2022-48689: tcp: TX zerocopy should not sense pfmemalloc status

> A race condition in the Linux kernel TCP zerocopy path involving pfmemalloc status checks can lead to system instability or crashes.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.3 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 3 May 2024
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2022-48689, GHSA-93vx-p2jx-wj6m, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-48689

## What is CVE-2022-48689?

CVE-2022-48689 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 3 May 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

tcp: TX zerocopy should not sense pfmemalloc status

We got a recent syzbot report [1] showing a possible misuse
of pfmemalloc page status in TCP zerocopy paths.

Indeed, for pages coming from user space or other layers,
using page_is_pfmemalloc() is moot, and possibly could give
false positives.

There has been attempts to make page_is_pfmemalloc() more robust,
but not using it in the first place in this context is probably better,
removing cpu cycles.

Note to stable teams :

You need to backport 84ce071e38a6 ("net: introduce
__skb_fill_page_desc_noacc") as a prereq.

Race is more probable after commit c07aea3ef4d4
("mm: add a signature in struct page") because page_is_pfmemalloc()
is now using low order bit from page->lru.next, which can change
more often than page->index.

Low order bit should never be set for lru.next (when used as an anchor
in LRU list), so KCSAN report is mostly a false positive.

Backporting to older kernel versions seems not necessary.

[1]
BUG: KCSAN: data-race in lru_add_fn / tcp_build_frag

write to 0xffffea0004a1d2c8 of 8 bytes by task 18600 on cpu 0:
__list_add include/linux/list.h:73 [inline]
list_add include/linux/list.h:88 [inline]
lruvec_add_folio include/linux/mm_inline.h:105 [inline]
lru_add_fn+0x440/0x520 mm/swap.c:228
folio_batch_move_lru+0x1e1/0x2a0 mm/swap.c:246
folio_batch_add_and_move mm/swap.c:263 [inline]
folio_add_lru+0xf1/0x140 mm/swap.c:490
filemap_add_folio+0xf8/0x150 mm/filemap.c:948
__filemap_get_folio+0x510/0x6d0 mm/filemap.c:1981
pagecache_get_page+0x26/0x190 mm/folio-compat.c:104
grab_cache_page_write_begin+0x2a/0x30 mm/folio-compat.c:116
ext4_da_write_begin+0x2dd/0x5f0 fs/ext4/inode.c:2988
generic_perform_write+0x1d4/0x3f0 mm/filemap.c:3738
ext4_buffered_write_iter+0x235/0x3e0 fs/ext4/file.c:270
ext4_file_write_iter+0x2e3/0x1210
call_write_iter include/linux/fs.h:2187 [inline]
new_sync_write fs/read_write.c:491 [inline]
vfs_write+0x468/0x760 fs/read_write.c:578
ksys_write+0xe8/0x1a0 fs/read_write.c:631
__do_sys_write fs/read_write.c:643 [inline]
__se_sys_write fs/read_write.c:640 [inline]
__x64_sys_write+0x3e/0x50 fs/read_write.c:640
do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline]
do_syscall_64+0x2b/0x70 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd

read to 0xffffea0004a1d2c8 of 8 bytes by task 18611 on cpu 1:
page_is_pfmemalloc include/linux/mm.h:1740 [inline]
__skb_fill_page_desc include/linux/skbuff.h:2422 [inline]
skb_fill_page_desc include/linux/skbuff.h:2443 [inline]
tcp_build_frag+0x613/0xb20 net/ipv4/tcp.c:1018
do_tcp_sendpages+0x3e8/0xaf0 net/ipv4/tcp.c:1075
tcp_sendpage_locked net/ipv4/tcp.c:1140 [inline]
tcp_sendpage+0x89/0xb0 net/ipv4/tcp.c:1150
inet_sendpage+0x7f/0xc0 net/ipv4/af_inet.c:833
kernel_sendpage+0x184/0x300 net/socket.c:3561
sock_sendpage+0x5a/0x70 net/socket.c:1054
pipe_to_sendpage+0x128/0x160 fs/splice.c:361
splice_from_pipe_feed fs/splice.c:415 [inline]
__splice_from_pipe+0x222/0x4d0 fs/splice.c:559
splice_from_pipe fs/splice.c:594 [inline]
generic_splice_sendpage+0x89/0xc0 fs/splice.c:743
do_splice_from fs/splice.c:764 [inline]
direct_splice_actor+0x80/0xa0 fs/splice.c:931
splice_direct_to_actor+0x305/0x620 fs/splice.c:886
do_splice_direct+0xfb/0x180 fs/splice.c:974
do_sendfile+0x3bf/0x910 fs/read_write.c:1249
__do_sys_sendfile64 fs/read_write.c:1317 [inline]
__se_sys_sendfile64 fs/read_write.c:1303 [inline]
__x64_sys_sendfile64+0x10c/0x150 fs/read_write.c:1303
do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline]
do_syscall_64+0x2b/0x70 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd

value changed: 0x0000000000000000 -> 0xffffea0004a1d288

Reported by Kernel Concurrency Sanitizer on:
CPU: 1 PID: 18611 Comm: syz-executor.4 Not tainted 6.0.0-rc2-syzkaller-00248-ge022620b5d05-dirty #0
Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 07/22/2022

Weakness: CWE-362 (Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-48689?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-48689?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2022-48689 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-48689 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2022-48689 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-48689 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 3 May 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-48689 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-48689/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-48689/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-48689
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-48689
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-48689

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-48689/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.