CVE-2024-40914 mm/huge_memory: don't unpoison huge_zero_folio

Medium 5.5 Published 12 Jul 2024 Updated 23 May 2026

A kernel bug in huge memory handling causes a panic when unpoisoning huge zero folios, leading to system 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-2024-40914?

CVE-2024-40914 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 12 Jul 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:

mm/huge_memory: don't unpoison huge_zero_folio

When I did memory failure tests recently, below panic occurs:

kernel BUG at include/linux/mm.h:1135! invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI CPU: 9 PID: 137 Comm: kswapd1 Not tainted 6.9.0-rc4-00491-gd5ce28f156fe-dirty #14 RIP: 0010:shrink_huge_zero_page_scan+0x168/0x1a0 RSP: 0018:ffff9933c6c57bd0 EFLAGS: 00000246 RAX: 000000000000003e RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: ffff88f61fc5c9c8 RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000027 RDI: ffff88f61fc5c9c0 RBP: ffffcd7c446b0000 R08: ffffffff9a9405f0 R09: 0000000000005492 R10: 00000000000030ea R11: ffffffff9a9405f0 R12: 0000000000000000 R13: 0000000000000000 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: ffff88e703c4ac00 FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff88f61fc40000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 000055f4da6e9878 CR3: 0000000c71048000 CR4: 00000000000006f0 Call Trace: <TASK> do_shrink_slab+0x14f/0x6a0 shrink_slab+0xca/0x8c0 shrink_node+0x2d0/0x7d0 balance_pgdat+0x33a/0x720 kswapd+0x1f3/0x410 kthread+0xd5/0x100 ret_from_fork+0x2f/0x50 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 </TASK> Modules linked in: mce_inject hwpoison_inject ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- RIP: 0010:shrink_huge_zero_page_scan+0x168/0x1a0 RSP: 0018:ffff9933c6c57bd0 EFLAGS: 00000246 RAX: 000000000000003e RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: ffff88f61fc5c9c8 RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000027 RDI: ffff88f61fc5c9c0 RBP: ffffcd7c446b0000 R08: ffffffff9a9405f0 R09: 0000000000005492 R10: 00000000000030ea R11: ffffffff9a9405f0 R12: 0000000000000000 R13: 0000000000000000 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: ffff88e703c4ac00 FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff88f61fc40000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 000055f4da6e9878 CR3: 0000000c71048000 CR4: 00000000000006f0

The root cause is that HWPoison flag will be set for huge_zero_folio without increasing the folio refcnt. But then unpoison_memory() will decrease the folio refcnt unexpectedly as it appears like a successfully hwpoisoned folio leading to VM_BUG_ON_PAGE(page_ref_count(page) == 0) when releasing huge_zero_folio.

Skip unpoisoning huge_zero_folio in unpoison_memory() to fix this issue. We're not prepared to unpoison huge_zero_folio yet.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-40914?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2024-40914?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2024-40914 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-40914 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as BELL-CVE-2024-40914, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-40914, GHSA-pqrm-m338-wr89, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-40914.