CVE-2022-49955 powerpc/rtas: Fix RTAS MSR[HV] handling for Cell
A flaw in Linux kernel RTAS handling on IBM Cell machines causes kernel crashes, leading to denial of service.
- 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-2022-49955?
CVE-2022-49955 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 18 Jun 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: Fix RTAS MSR[HV] handling for Cell
The semi-recent changes to MSR handling when entering RTAS (firmware) cause crashes on IBM Cell machines. An example trace:
kernel tried to execute user page (2fff01a8) - exploit attempt? (uid: 0) BUG: Unable to handle kernel instruction fetch Faulting instruction address: 0x2fff01a8 Oops: Kernel access of bad area, sig: 11 [#1] BE PAGE_SIZE=64K MMU=Hash SMP NR_CPUS=4 NUMA Cell Modules linked in: CPU: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/0 Tainted: G W 6.0.0-rc2-00433-gede0a8d3307a #207 NIP: 000000002fff01a8 LR: 0000000000032608 CTR: 0000000000000000 REGS: c0000000015236b0 TRAP: 0400 Tainted: G W (6.0.0-rc2-00433-gede0a8d3307a) MSR: 0000000008001002 <ME,RI> CR: 00000000 XER: 20000000 ... NIP 0x2fff01a8 LR 0x32608 Call Trace: 0xc00000000143c5f8 (unreliable) .rtas_call+0x224/0x320 .rtas_get_boot_time+0x70/0x150 .read_persistent_clock64+0x114/0x140 .read_persistent_wall_and_boot_offset+0x24/0x80 .timekeeping_init+0x40/0x29c .start_kernel+0x674/0x8f0 start_here_common+0x1c/0x50
Unlike PAPR platforms where RTAS is only used in guests, on the IBM Cell machines Linux runs with MSR[HV] set but also uses RTAS, provided by SLOF.
Fix it by copying the MSR[HV] bit from the MSR value we've just read using mfmsr into the value used for RTAS.
It seems like we could also fix it using an #ifdef CELL to set MSR[HV], but that doesn't work because it's possible to build a single kernel image that runs on both Cell native and pseries.
Weakness: CWE-476
Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49955?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2022-49955?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2022-49955 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49955 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49955, GHSA-q32g-q8h6-hf4v, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2022-49955, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49955.