# CVE-2024-45024: mm/hugetlb: fix hugetlb vs. core-mm PT locking

> A race condition in Linux kernel hugetlb page table locking can cause system warnings and potential denial of service.

- **Severity:** High 7.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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:** 11 Sep 2024
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2024-45024, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-45024, GHSA-8grv-f28f-g844, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-45024

## What is CVE-2024-45024?

CVE-2024-45024 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 11 Sep 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/hugetlb: fix hugetlb vs. core-mm PT locking

We recently made GUP's common page table walking code to also walk hugetlb
VMAs without most hugetlb special-casing, preparing for the future of
having less hugetlb-specific page table walking code in the codebase. 
Turns out that we missed one page table locking detail: page table locking
for hugetlb folios that are not mapped using a single PMD/PUD.

Assume we have hugetlb folio that spans multiple PTEs (e.g., 64 KiB
hugetlb folios on arm64 with 4 KiB base page size).  GUP, as it walks the
page tables, will perform a pte_offset_map_lock() to grab the PTE table
lock.

However, hugetlb that concurrently modifies these page tables would
actually grab the mm->page_table_lock: with USE_SPLIT_PTE_PTLOCKS, the
locks would differ.  Something similar can happen right now with hugetlb
folios that span multiple PMDs when USE_SPLIT_PMD_PTLOCKS.

This issue can be reproduced [1], for example triggering:

[ 3105.936100] ------------[ cut here ]------------
[ 3105.939323] WARNING: CPU: 31 PID: 2732 at mm/gup.c:142 try_grab_folio+0x11c/0x188
[ 3105.944634] Modules linked in: [...]
[ 3105.974841] CPU: 31 PID: 2732 Comm: reproducer Not tainted 6.10.0-64.eln141.aarch64 #1
[ 3105.980406] Hardware name: QEMU KVM Virtual Machine, BIOS edk2-20240524-4.fc40 05/24/2024
[ 3105.986185] pstate: 60000005 (nZCv daif -PAN -UAO -TCO -DIT -SSBS BTYPE=--)
[ 3105.991108] pc : try_grab_folio+0x11c/0x188
[ 3105.994013] lr : follow_page_pte+0xd8/0x430
[ 3105.996986] sp : ffff80008eafb8f0
[ 3105.999346] x29: ffff80008eafb900 x28: ffffffe8d481f380 x27: 00f80001207cff43
[ 3106.004414] x26: 0000000000000001 x25: 0000000000000000 x24: ffff80008eafba48
[ 3106.009520] x23: 0000ffff9372f000 x22: ffff7a54459e2000 x21: ffff7a546c1aa978
[ 3106.014529] x20: ffffffe8d481f3c0 x19: 0000000000610041 x18: 0000000000000001
[ 3106.019506] x17: 0000000000000001 x16: ffffffffffffffff x15: 0000000000000000
[ 3106.024494] x14: ffffb85477fdfe08 x13: 0000ffff9372ffff x12: 0000000000000000
[ 3106.029469] x11: 1fffef4a88a96be1 x10: ffff7a54454b5f0c x9 : ffffb854771b12f0
[ 3106.034324] x8 : 0008000000000000 x7 : ffff7a546c1aa980 x6 : 0008000000000080
[ 3106.038902] x5 : 00000000001207cf x4 : 0000ffff9372f000 x3 : ffffffe8d481f000
[ 3106.043420] x2 : 0000000000610041 x1 : 0000000000000001 x0 : 0000000000000000
[ 3106.047957] Call trace:
[ 3106.049522]  try_grab_folio+0x11c/0x188
[ 3106.051996]  follow_pmd_mask.constprop.0.isra.0+0x150/0x2e0
[ 3106.055527]  follow_page_mask+0x1a0/0x2b8
[ 3106.058118]  __get_user_pages+0xf0/0x348
[ 3106.060647]  faultin_page_range+0xb0/0x360
[ 3106.063651]  do_madvise+0x340/0x598

Let's make huge_pte_lockptr() effectively use the same PT locks as any
core-mm page table walker would.  Add ptep_lockptr() to obtain the PTE
page table lock using a pte pointer -- unfortunately we cannot convert
pte_lockptr() because virt_to_page() doesn't work with kmap'ed page tables
we can have with CONFIG_HIGHPTE.

Handle CONFIG_PGTABLE_LEVELS correctly by checking in reverse order, such
that when e.g., CONFIG_PGTABLE_LEVELS==2 with
PGDIR_SIZE==P4D_SIZE==PUD_SIZE==PMD_SIZE will work as expected.  Document
why that works.

There is one ugly case: powerpc 8xx, whereby we have an 8 MiB hugetlb
folio being mapped using two PTE page tables.  While hugetlb wants to take
the PMD table lock, core-mm would grab the PTE table lock of one of both
PTE page tables.  In such corner cases, we have to make sure that both
locks match, which is (fortunately!) currently guaranteed for 8xx as it
does not support SMP and consequently doesn't use split PT locks.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/1bbfcc7f-f222-45a5-ac44-c5a1381c596d@redhat.com/

Weakness: CWE-667 (Improper Locking)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-45024?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2024-45024?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2024-45024 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-45024 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-2024-45024 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2024-45024 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 11 Sep 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-2024-45024 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-2024-45024/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-45024/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-45024
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-45024
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2024-45024

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-45024/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.