CVE-2022-49526 md/bitmap: don't set sb values if can't pass sanity check

Medium 5.5 Published Updated

A local attacker with disk access can crash the Linux kernel by corrupting bitmap metadata in a clustered MD array, causing a divide-by-zero error.

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

What is CVE-2022-49526?

CVE-2022-49526 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:

md/bitmap: don't set sb values if can't pass sanity check

If bitmap area contains invalid data, kernel will crash then mdadm triggers "Segmentation fault". This is cluster-md speical bug. In non-clustered env, mdadm will handle broken metadata case. In clustered array, only kernel space handles bitmap slot info. But even this bug only happened in clustered env, current sanity check is wrong, the code should be changed.

How to trigger: (faulty injection)

dd if=/dev/zero bs=1M count=1 oflag=direct of=/dev/sda dd if=/dev/zero bs=1M count=1 oflag=direct of=/dev/sdb mdadm -C /dev/md0 -b clustered -e 1.2 -n 2 -l mirror /dev/sda /dev/sdb mdadm -Ss echo aaa > magic.txt == below modifying slot 2 bitmap data == dd if=magic.txt of=/dev/sda seek=16384 bs=1 count=3 <== destroy magic dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda seek=16436 bs=1 count=4 <== ZERO chunksize mdadm -A /dev/md0 /dev/sda /dev/sdb == kernel crashes. mdadm outputs "Segmentation fault" ==

Reason of kernel crash:

In md_bitmap_read_sb (called by md_bitmap_create), bad bitmap magic didn't block chunksize assignment, and zero value made DIV_ROUND_UP_SECTOR_T() trigger "divide error".

Crash log:

kernel: md: md0 stopped. kernel: md/raid1:md0: not clean -- starting background reconstruction kernel: md/raid1:md0: active with 2 out of 2 mirrors kernel: dlm: ... ... kernel: md-cluster: Joined cluster 44810aba-38bb-e6b8-daca-bc97a0b254aa slot 1 kernel: md0: invalid bitmap file superblock: bad magic kernel: md_bitmap_copy_from_slot can't get bitmap from slot 2 kernel: md-cluster: Could not gather bitmaps from slot 2 kernel: divide error: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI kernel: CPU: 0 PID: 1603 Comm: mdadm Not tainted 5.14.6-1-default kernel: Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996) kernel: RIP: 0010:md_bitmap_create+0x1d1/0x850 [md_mod] kernel: RSP: 0018:ffffc22ac0843ba0 EFLAGS: 00010246 kernel: ... ... kernel: Call Trace: kernel: ? dlm_lock_sync+0xd0/0xd0 [md_cluster 77fe..7a0] kernel: md_bitmap_copy_from_slot+0x2c/0x290 [md_mod 24ea..d3a] kernel: load_bitmaps+0xec/0x210 [md_cluster 77fe..7a0] kernel: md_bitmap_load+0x81/0x1e0 [md_mod 24ea..d3a] kernel: do_md_run+0x30/0x100 [md_mod 24ea..d3a] kernel: md_ioctl+0x1290/0x15a0 [md_mod 24ea....d3a] kernel: ? mddev_unlock+0xaa/0x130 [md_mod 24ea..d3a] kernel: ? blkdev_ioctl+0xb1/0x2b0 kernel: block_ioctl+0x3b/0x40 kernel: __x64_sys_ioctl+0x7f/0xb0 kernel: do_syscall_64+0x59/0x80 kernel: ? exit_to_user_mode_prepare+0x1ab/0x230 kernel: ? syscall_exit_to_user_mode+0x18/0x40 kernel: ? do_syscall_64+0x69/0x80 kernel: entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae kernel: RIP: 0033:0x7f4a15fa722b kernel: ... ... kernel: ---[ end trace 8afa7612f559c868 ]--- kernel: RIP: 0010:md_bitmap_create+0x1d1/0x850 [md_mod]

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49526?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2022-49526?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2022-49526 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49526 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49526, GHSA-w5j3-2fj8-5x8c, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49526.

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