# CVE-2024-42241: mm/shmem: disable PMD-sized page cache if needed

> A flaw in the Linux kernel's shmem subsystem can cause a kernel warning and potential crash when splitting large page cache entries on specific architectures.

- **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:** 7 Aug 2024
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-47510, BELL-CVE-2024-42241, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-42241, GHSA-m4qj-p3wv-ph7c, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2024-42241, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-42241

## What is CVE-2024-42241?

CVE-2024-42241 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 7 Aug 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/shmem: disable PMD-sized page cache if needed

For shmem files, it's possible that PMD-sized page cache can't be
supported by xarray.  For example, 512MB page cache on ARM64 when the base
page size is 64KB can't be supported by xarray.  It leads to errors as the
following messages indicate when this sort of xarray entry is split.

WARNING: CPU: 34 PID: 7578 at lib/xarray.c:1025 xas_split_alloc+0xf8/0x128
Modules linked in: binfmt_misc nft_fib_inet nft_fib_ipv4 nft_fib_ipv6   \
nft_fib nft_reject_inet nf_reject_ipv4 nf_reject_ipv6 nft_reject        \
nft_ct nft_chain_nat nf_nat nf_conntrack nf_defrag_ipv6 nf_defrag_ipv4  \
ip_set rfkill nf_tables nfnetlink vfat fat virtio_balloon drm fuse xfs  \
libcrc32c crct10dif_ce ghash_ce sha2_ce sha256_arm64 sha1_ce virtio_net \
net_failover virtio_console virtio_blk failover dimlib virtio_mmio
CPU: 34 PID: 7578 Comm: test Kdump: loaded Tainted: G W 6.10.0-rc5-gavin+ #9
Hardware name: QEMU KVM Virtual Machine, BIOS edk2-20240524-1.el9 05/24/2024
pstate: 83400005 (Nzcv daif +PAN -UAO +TCO +DIT -SSBS BTYPE=--)
pc : xas_split_alloc+0xf8/0x128
lr : split_huge_page_to_list_to_order+0x1c4/0x720
sp : ffff8000882af5f0
x29: ffff8000882af5f0 x28: ffff8000882af650 x27: ffff8000882af768
x26: 0000000000000cc0 x25: 000000000000000d x24: ffff00010625b858
x23: ffff8000882af650 x22: ffffffdfc0900000 x21: 0000000000000000
x20: 0000000000000000 x19: ffffffdfc0900000 x18: 0000000000000000
x17: 0000000000000000 x16: 0000018000000000 x15: 52f8004000000000
x14: 0000e00000000000 x13: 0000000000002000 x12: 0000000000000020
x11: 52f8000000000000 x10: 52f8e1c0ffff6000 x9 : ffffbeb9619a681c
x8 : 0000000000000003 x7 : 0000000000000000 x6 : ffff00010b02ddb0
x5 : ffffbeb96395e378 x4 : 0000000000000000 x3 : 0000000000000cc0
x2 : 000000000000000d x1 : 000000000000000c x0 : 0000000000000000
Call trace:
 xas_split_alloc+0xf8/0x128
 split_huge_page_to_list_to_order+0x1c4/0x720
 truncate_inode_partial_folio+0xdc/0x160
 shmem_undo_range+0x2bc/0x6a8
 shmem_fallocate+0x134/0x430
 vfs_fallocate+0x124/0x2e8
 ksys_fallocate+0x4c/0xa0
 __arm64_sys_fallocate+0x24/0x38
 invoke_syscall.constprop.0+0x7c/0xd8
 do_el0_svc+0xb4/0xd0
 el0_svc+0x44/0x1d8
 el0t_64_sync_handler+0x134/0x150
 el0t_64_sync+0x17c/0x180

Fix it by disabling PMD-sized page cache when HPAGE_PMD_ORDER is larger
than MAX_PAGECACHE_ORDER.  As Matthew Wilcox pointed, the page cache in a
shmem file isn't represented by a multi-index entry and doesn't have this
limitation when the xarry entry is split until commit 6b24ca4a1a8d ("mm:
Use multi-index entries in the page cache").

Weakness: CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-42241?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2024-42241?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2024-42241 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-42241 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2024-42241 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2024-42241 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 7 Aug 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-2024-42241 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. 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-2024-42241/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-42241/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-42241
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-42241
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2024-42241

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-42241/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.