# CVE-2022-48845: MIPS: smp: fill in sibling and core maps earlier

> A null pointer dereference in the Linux kernel MIPS SMP code causes a warning and potential crash when CONFIG_SCHED_CORE is enabled.

- **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-2022-48845, GHSA-r7cx-6c4p-88r8, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-48845

## What is CVE-2022-48845?

CVE-2022-48845 is a medium-severity 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:

MIPS: smp: fill in sibling and core maps earlier

After enabling CONFIG_SCHED_CORE (landed during 5.14 cycle),
2-core 2-thread-per-core interAptiv (CPS-driven) started emitting
the following:

[    0.025698] CPU1 revision is: 0001a120 (MIPS interAptiv (multi))
[    0.048183] ------------[ cut here ]------------
[    0.048187] WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 0 at kernel/sched/core.c:6025 sched_core_cpu_starting+0x198/0x240
[    0.048220] Modules linked in:
[    0.048233] CPU: 1 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/1 Not tainted 5.17.0-rc3+ #35 b7b319f24073fd9a3c2aa7ad15fb7993eec0b26f
[    0.048247] Stack : 817f0000 00000004 327804c8 810eb050 00000000 00000004 00000000 c314fdd1
[    0.048278]         830cbd64 819c0000 81800000 817f0000 83070bf4 00000001 830cbd08 00000000
[    0.048307]         00000000 00000000 815fcbc4 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
[    0.048334]         00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 817f0000 00000000 00000000 817f6f34
[    0.048361]         817f0000 818a3c00 817f0000 00000004 00000000 00000000 4dc33260 0018c933
[    0.048389]         ...
[    0.048396] Call Trace:
[    0.048399] [<8105a7bc>] show_stack+0x3c/0x140
[    0.048424] [<8131c2a0>] dump_stack_lvl+0x60/0x80
[    0.048440] [<8108b5c0>] __warn+0xc0/0xf4
[    0.048454] [<8108b658>] warn_slowpath_fmt+0x64/0x10c
[    0.048467] [<810bd418>] sched_core_cpu_starting+0x198/0x240
[    0.048483] [<810c6514>] sched_cpu_starting+0x14/0x80
[    0.048497] [<8108c0f8>] cpuhp_invoke_callback_range+0x78/0x140
[    0.048510] [<8108d914>] notify_cpu_starting+0x94/0x140
[    0.048523] [<8106593c>] start_secondary+0xbc/0x280
[    0.048539]
[    0.048543] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---
[    0.048636] Synchronize counters for CPU 1: done.

...for each but CPU 0/boot.
Basic debug printks right before the mentioned line say:

[    0.048170] CPU: 1, smt_mask:

So smt_mask, which is sibling mask obviously, is empty when entering
the function.
This is critical, as sched_core_cpu_starting() calculates
core-scheduling parameters only once per CPU start, and it's crucial
to have all the parameters filled in at that moment (at least it
uses cpu_smt_mask() which in fact is `&cpu_sibling_map[cpu]` on
MIPS).

A bit of debugging led me to that set_cpu_sibling_map() performing
the actual map calculation, was being invocated after
notify_cpu_start(), and exactly the latter function starts CPU HP
callback round (sched_core_cpu_starting() is basically a CPU HP
callback).
While the flow is same on ARM64 (maps after the notifier, although
before calling set_cpu_online()), x86 started calculating sibling
maps earlier than starting the CPU HP callbacks in Linux 4.14 (see
[0] for the reference). Neither me nor my brief tests couldn't find
any potential caveats in calculating the maps right after performing
delay calibration, but the WARN splat is now gone.
The very same debug prints now yield exactly what I expected from
them:

[    0.048433] CPU: 1, smt_mask: 0-1

[0] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mips/linux.git/commit/?id=76ce7cfe35ef

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-48845?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-48845?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2022-48845 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-48845 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-2022-48845 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-48845 is a medium-severity 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-2022-48845 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-2022-48845/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-48845/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-48845
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-48845
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-48845

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-48845/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.