# CVE-2024-35877: x86/mm/pat: fix VM_PAT handling in COW mappings > A flaw in Linux kernel PAT handling for COW mappings can cause memory leaks and kernel warnings, potentially 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:** 19 May 2024 - **Updated:** 15 Oct 2026 - **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2024-35877, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-35877, GHSA-mgpj-gvmw-xq4j, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-35877 ## What is CVE-2024-35877? CVE-2024-35877 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, published on 19 May 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: x86/mm/pat: fix VM_PAT handling in COW mappings PAT handling won't do the right thing in COW mappings: the first PTE (or, in fact, all PTEs) can be replaced during write faults to point at anon folios. Reliably recovering the correct PFN and cachemode using follow_phys() from PTEs will not work in COW mappings. Using follow_phys(), we might just get the address+protection of the anon folio (which is very wrong), or fail on swap/nonswap entries, failing follow_phys() and triggering a WARN_ON_ONCE() in untrack_pfn() and track_pfn_copy(), not properly calling free_pfn_range(). In free_pfn_range(), we either wouldn't call memtype_free() or would call it with the wrong range, possibly leaking memory. To fix that, let's update follow_phys() to refuse returning anon folios, and fallback to using the stored PFN inside vma->vm_pgoff for COW mappings if we run into that. We will now properly handle untrack_pfn() with COW mappings, where we don't need the cachemode. We'll have to fail fork()->track_pfn_copy() if the first page was replaced by an anon folio, though: we'd have to store the cachemode in the VMA to make this work, likely growing the VMA size. For now, lets keep it simple and let track_pfn_copy() just fail in that case: it would have failed in the past with swap/nonswap entries already, and it would have done the wrong thing with anon folios. Simple reproducer to trigger the WARN_ON_ONCE() in untrack_pfn(): <--- C reproducer ---> #include #include #include #include int main(void) { struct io_uring_params p = {}; int ring_fd; size_t size; char *map; ring_fd = io_uring_setup(1, &p); if (ring_fd < 0) { perror("io_uring_setup"); return 1; } size = p.sq_off.array + p.sq_entries * sizeof(unsigned); /* Map the submission queue ring MAP_PRIVATE */ map = mmap(0, size, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE, ring_fd, IORING_OFF_SQ_RING); if (map == MAP_FAILED) { perror("mmap"); return 1; } /* We have at least one page. Let's COW it. */ *map = 0; pause(); return 0; } <--- C reproducer ---> On a system with 16 GiB RAM and swap configured: # ./iouring & # memhog 16G # killall iouring [ 301.552930] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [ 301.553285] WARNING: CPU: 7 PID: 1402 at arch/x86/mm/pat/memtype.c:1060 untrack_pfn+0xf4/0x100 [ 301.553989] Modules linked in: binfmt_misc nft_fib_inet nft_fib_ipv4 nft_fib_ipv6 nft_fib nft_reject_g [ 301.558232] CPU: 7 PID: 1402 Comm: iouring Not tainted 6.7.5-100.fc38.x86_64 #1 [ 301.558772] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS rel-1.16.3-0-ga6ed6b701f0a-prebu4 [ 301.559569] RIP: 0010:untrack_pfn+0xf4/0x100 [ 301.559893] Code: 75 c4 eb cf 48 8b 43 10 8b a8 e8 00 00 00 3b 6b 28 74 b8 48 8b 7b 30 e8 ea 1a f7 000 [ 301.561189] RSP: 0018:ffffba2c0377fab8 EFLAGS: 00010282 [ 301.561590] RAX: 00000000ffffffea RBX: ffff9208c8ce9cc0 RCX: 000000010455e047 [ 301.562105] RDX: 07fffffff0eb1e0a RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: ffff9208c391d200 [ 301.562628] RBP: 0000000000000000 R08: ffffba2c0377fab8 R09: 0000000000000000 [ 301.563145] R10: ffff9208d2292d50 R11: 0000000000000002 R12: 00007fea890e0000 [ 301.563669] R13: 0000000000000000 R14: ffffba2c0377fc08 R15: 0000000000000000 [ 301.564186] FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff920c2fbc0000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 301.564773] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 301.565197] CR2: 00007fea88ee8a20 CR3: 00000001033a8000 CR4: 0000000000750ef0 [ 301.565725] PKRU: 55555554 [ 301.565944] Call Trace: [ 301.566148] [ 301.566325] ? untrack_pfn+0xf4/0x100 [ 301.566618] ? __warn+0x81/0x130 [ 301.566876] ? untrack_pfn+0xf4/0x100 [ 3 ---truncated--- Weakness: CWE-401 (Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime) ## Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-35877? It affects 2 products. Products: Debian Debian Linux, Linux kernel. ## How do I fix CVE-2024-35877? Apply the vendor's patch. ## Is CVE-2024-35877 being exploited? There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-35877 in the wild and no public exploit code. ## Other vulnerabilities in Debian Debian Linux - [CVE-2015-3306](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-3306/): ProFTPD Improper Access Control (critical 10.0, exploited in the wild) - [CVE-2025-49113](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-49113/): RoundCube Webmail Deserialization of Untrusted Data (critical 9.9, exploited in the wild) - [CVE-2026-24061](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-24061/): GNU InetUtils Argument Injection (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild) - [CVE-2025-39682](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-39682/): Linux Kernel Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild) - [CVE-2024-9680](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-9680/): Mozilla Firefox Use-After-Free (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild) ## Fix prompt for AI coding agents ```text Check this codebase for CVE-2024-35877 and fix it if it is affected. What it is: CVE-2024-35877 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, published on 19 May 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-2024-35877 in the wild and no public exploit code. Affected product: Debian Debian Linux. 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-2024-35877/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-35877/index.md) ``` ## Sources - CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-35877 - NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-35877 - OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2024-35877 --- From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-35877/ Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.