# CVE-2022-48800: mm: vmscan: remove deadlock due to throttling failing to make progress

> A deadlock in the Linux kernel memory management subsystem can cause a soft lockup and system hang, requiring a kernel patch to resolve.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **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:** 16 Jul 2024
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2022-48800, GHSA-cgvj-gwgx-p5f7, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-48800

## What is CVE-2022-48800?

CVE-2022-48800 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 16 Jul 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:

mm: vmscan: remove deadlock due to throttling failing to make progress

A soft lockup bug in kcompactd was reported in a private bugzilla with
the following visible in dmesg;

  watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#33 stuck for 26s! [kcompactd0:479]
  watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#33 stuck for 52s! [kcompactd0:479]
  watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#33 stuck for 78s! [kcompactd0:479]
  watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#33 stuck for 104s! [kcompactd0:479]

The machine had 256G of RAM with no swap and an earlier failed
allocation indicated that node 0 where kcompactd was run was potentially
unreclaimable;

  Node 0 active_anon:29355112kB inactive_anon:2913528kB active_file:0kB
    inactive_file:0kB unevictable:64kB isolated(anon):0kB isolated(file):0kB
    mapped:8kB dirty:0kB writeback:0kB shmem:26780kB shmem_thp:
    0kB shmem_pmdmapped: 0kB anon_thp: 23480320kB writeback_tmp:0kB
    kernel_stack:2272kB pagetables:24500kB all_unreclaimable? yes

Vlastimil Babka investigated a crash dump and found that a task
migrating pages was trying to drain PCP lists;

  PID: 52922  TASK: ffff969f820e5000  CPU: 19  COMMAND: "kworker/u128:3"
  Call Trace:
     __schedule
     schedule
     schedule_timeout
     wait_for_completion
     __flush_work
     __drain_all_pages
     __alloc_pages_slowpath.constprop.114
     __alloc_pages
     alloc_migration_target
     migrate_pages
     migrate_to_node
     do_migrate_pages
     cpuset_migrate_mm_workfn
     process_one_work
     worker_thread
     kthread
     ret_from_fork

This failure is specific to CONFIG_PREEMPT=n builds.  The root of the
problem is that kcompact0 is not rescheduling on a CPU while a task that
has isolated a large number of the pages from the LRU is waiting on
kcompact0 to reschedule so the pages can be released.  While
shrink_inactive_list() only loops once around too_many_isolated, reclaim
can continue without rescheduling if sc->skipped_deactivate == 1 which
could happen if there was no file LRU and the inactive anon list was not
low.

Weakness: CWE-667 (Improper Locking)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-48800?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-48800?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2022-48800 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-48800 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-2022-48800 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-48800 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 16 Jul 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-2022-48800 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-2022-48800/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-48800/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-48800
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-48800
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-48800

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-48800/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.