# CVE-2022-49440: powerpc/rtas: Keep MSR[RI] set when calling RTAS

> A kernel bug in PowerPC RTAS handling causes a system panic when a watchdog interrupt occurs, leading to denial of service.

- **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:** 26 Feb 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49440, GHSA-64ww-mp7v-2p59, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2022-49440, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49440

## What is CVE-2022-49440?

CVE-2022-49440 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 26 Feb 2025. 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:

powerpc/rtas: Keep MSR[RI] set when calling RTAS

RTAS runs in real mode (MSR[DR] and MSR[IR] unset) and in 32-bit big
endian mode (MSR[SF,LE] unset).

The change in MSR is done in enter_rtas() in a relatively complex way,
since the MSR value could be hardcoded.

Furthermore, a panic has been reported when hitting the watchdog interrupt
while running in RTAS, this leads to the following stack trace:

  watchdog: CPU 24 Hard LOCKUP
  watchdog: CPU 24 TB:997512652051031, last heartbeat TB:997504470175378 (15980ms ago)
  ...
  Supported: No, Unreleased kernel
  CPU: 24 PID: 87504 Comm: drmgr Kdump: loaded Tainted: G            E  X    5.14.21-150400.71.1.bz196362_2-default #1 SLE15-SP4 (unreleased) 0d821077ef4faa8dfaf370efb5fdca1fa35f4e2c
  NIP:  000000001fb41050 LR: 000000001fb4104c CTR: 0000000000000000
  REGS: c00000000fc33d60 TRAP: 0100   Tainted: G            E  X     (5.14.21-150400.71.1.bz196362_2-default)
  MSR:  8000000002981000 <SF,VEC,VSX,ME>  CR: 48800002  XER: 20040020
  CFAR: 000000000000011c IRQMASK: 1
  GPR00: 0000000000000003 ffffffffffffffff 0000000000000001 00000000000050dc
  GPR04: 000000001ffb6100 0000000000000020 0000000000000001 000000001fb09010
  GPR08: 0000000020000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
  GPR12: 80040000072a40a8 c00000000ff8b680 0000000000000007 0000000000000034
  GPR16: 000000001fbf6e94 000000001fbf6d84 000000001fbd1db0 000000001fb3f008
  GPR20: 000000001fb41018 ffffffffffffffff 000000000000017f fffffffffffff68f
  GPR24: 000000001fb18fe8 000000001fb3e000 000000001fb1adc0 000000001fb1cf40
  GPR28: 000000001fb26000 000000001fb460f0 000000001fb17f18 000000001fb17000
  NIP [000000001fb41050] 0x1fb41050
  LR [000000001fb4104c] 0x1fb4104c
  Call Trace:
  Instruction dump:
  XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX
  XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX
  Oops: Unrecoverable System Reset, sig: 6 [#1]
  LE PAGE_SIZE=64K MMU=Hash SMP NR_CPUS=2048 NUMA pSeries
  ...
  Supported: No, Unreleased kernel
  CPU: 24 PID: 87504 Comm: drmgr Kdump: loaded Tainted: G            E  X    5.14.21-150400.71.1.bz196362_2-default #1 SLE15-SP4 (unreleased) 0d821077ef4faa8dfaf370efb5fdca1fa35f4e2c
  NIP:  000000001fb41050 LR: 000000001fb4104c CTR: 0000000000000000
  REGS: c00000000fc33d60 TRAP: 0100   Tainted: G            E  X     (5.14.21-150400.71.1.bz196362_2-default)
  MSR:  8000000002981000 <SF,VEC,VSX,ME>  CR: 48800002  XER: 20040020
  CFAR: 000000000000011c IRQMASK: 1
  GPR00: 0000000000000003 ffffffffffffffff 0000000000000001 00000000000050dc
  GPR04: 000000001ffb6100 0000000000000020 0000000000000001 000000001fb09010
  GPR08: 0000000020000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
  GPR12: 80040000072a40a8 c00000000ff8b680 0000000000000007 0000000000000034
  GPR16: 000000001fbf6e94 000000001fbf6d84 000000001fbd1db0 000000001fb3f008
  GPR20: 000000001fb41018 ffffffffffffffff 000000000000017f fffffffffffff68f
  GPR24: 000000001fb18fe8 000000001fb3e000 000000001fb1adc0 000000001fb1cf40
  GPR28: 000000001fb26000 000000001fb460f0 000000001fb17f18 000000001fb17000
  NIP [000000001fb41050] 0x1fb41050
  LR [000000001fb4104c] 0x1fb4104c
  Call Trace:
  Instruction dump:
  XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX
  XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX
  ---[ end trace 3ddec07f638c34a2 ]---

This happens because MSR[RI] is unset when entering RTAS but there is no
valid reason to not set it here.

RTAS is expected to be called with MSR[RI] as specified in PAPR+ section
"7.2.1 Machine State":

  R1–7.2.1–9. If called with MSR[RI] equal to 1, then RTAS must protect
  its own critical regions from recursion by setting the MSR[RI] bit to
  0 when in the critical regions.

Fixing this by reviewing the way MSR is compute before calling RTAS. Now a
hardcoded value meaning real 
---truncated---

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49440?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-49440?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2022-49440 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49440 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-2022-49440 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-49440 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 26 Feb 2025. 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-2022-49440 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-2022-49440/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-49440/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-49440
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-49440
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-49440

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-49440/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.