CVE-2022-49443 list: fix a data-race around ep->rdllist

What is CVE-2022-49443?

CVE-2022-49443 is a medium-severity 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:

list: fix a data-race around ep->rdllist

ep_poll() first calls ep_events_available() with no lock held and checks if ep->rdllist is empty by list_empty_careful(), which reads rdllist->prev. Thus all accesses to it need some protection to avoid store/load-tearing.

Note INIT_LIST_HEAD_RCU() already has the annotation for both prev and next.

Commit bf3b9f6372c4 ("epoll: Add busy poll support to epoll with socket fds.") added the first lockless ep_events_available(), and commit c5a282e9635e ("fs/epoll: reduce the scope of wq lock in epoll_wait()") made some ep_events_available() calls lockless and added single call under a lock, finally commit e59d3c64cba6 ("epoll: eliminate unnecessary lock for zero timeout") made the last ep_events_available() lockless.

BUG: KCSAN: data-race in do_epoll_wait / do_epoll_wait

write to 0xffff88810480c7d8 of 8 bytes by task 1802 on cpu 0: INIT_LIST_HEAD include/linux/list.h:38 [inline] list_splice_init include/linux/list.h:492 [inline] ep_start_scan fs/eventpoll.c:622 [inline] ep_send_events fs/eventpoll.c:1656 [inline] ep_poll fs/eventpoll.c:1806 [inline] do_epoll_wait+0x4eb/0xf40 fs/eventpoll.c:2234 do_epoll_pwait fs/eventpoll.c:2268 [inline] __do_sys_epoll_pwait fs/eventpoll.c:2281 [inline] __se_sys_epoll_pwait+0x12b/0x240 fs/eventpoll.c:2275 __x64_sys_epoll_pwait+0x74/0x80 fs/eventpoll.c:2275 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x44/0xd0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae

read to 0xffff88810480c7d8 of 8 bytes by task 1799 on cpu 1: list_empty_careful include/linux/list.h:329 [inline] ep_events_available fs/eventpoll.c:381 [inline] ep_poll fs/eventpoll.c:1797 [inline] do_epoll_wait+0x279/0xf40 fs/eventpoll.c:2234 do_epoll_pwait fs/eventpoll.c:2268 [inline] __do_sys_epoll_pwait fs/eventpoll.c:2281 [inline] __se_sys_epoll_pwait+0x12b/0x240 fs/eventpoll.c:2275 __x64_sys_epoll_pwait+0x74/0x80 fs/eventpoll.c:2275 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x44/0xd0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae

value changed: 0xffff88810480c7d0 -> 0xffff888103c15098

Reported by Kernel Concurrency Sanitizer on: CPU: 1 PID: 1799 Comm: syz-fuzzer Tainted: G W 5.17.0-rc7-syzkaller-dirty #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 01/01/2011

Weakness: CWE-362

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49443?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2022-49443?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2022-49443 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49443 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49443, GHSA-547x-8cmf-v92w, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2022-49443, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49443.