CVE-2024-46790 codetag: debug: mark codetags for poisoned page as empty

Medium 5.5 Published Updated

A double decrement of allocation tag counters for poisoned pages triggers a kernel warning, potentially leading to system instability or 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-2024-46790?

CVE-2024-46790 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 18 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:

codetag: debug: mark codetags for poisoned page as empty

When PG_hwpoison pages are freed they are treated differently in free_pages_prepare() and instead of being released they are isolated.

Page allocation tag counters are decremented at this point since the page is considered not in use. Later on when such pages are released by unpoison_memory(), the allocation tag counters will be decremented again and the following warning gets reported:

[ 113.930443][ T3282] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [ 113.931105][ T3282] alloc_tag was not set [ 113.931576][ T3282] WARNING: CPU: 2 PID: 3282 at ./include/linux/alloc_tag.h:130 pgalloc_tag_sub.part.66+0x154/0x164 [ 113.932866][ T3282] Modules linked in: hwpoison_inject fuse ip6t_rpfilter ip6t_REJECT nf_reject_ipv6 ipt_REJECT nf_reject_ipv4 xt_conntrack ebtable_nat ebtable_broute ip6table_nat ip6table_man4 [ 113.941638][ T3282] CPU: 2 UID: 0 PID: 3282 Comm: madvise11 Kdump: loaded Tainted: G W 6.11.0-rc4-dirty #18 [ 113.943003][ T3282] Tainted: [W]=WARN [ 113.943453][ T3282] Hardware name: QEMU KVM Virtual Machine, BIOS unknown 2/2/2022 [ 113.944378][ T3282] pstate: 40400005 (nZcv daif +PAN -UAO -TCO -DIT -SSBS BTYPE=--) [ 113.945319][ T3282] pc : pgalloc_tag_sub.part.66+0x154/0x164 [ 113.946016][ T3282] lr : pgalloc_tag_sub.part.66+0x154/0x164 [ 113.946706][ T3282] sp : ffff800087093a10 [ 113.947197][ T3282] x29: ffff800087093a10 x28: ffff0000d7a9d400 x27: ffff80008249f0a0 [ 113.948165][ T3282] x26: 0000000000000000 x25: ffff80008249f2b0 x24: 0000000000000000 [ 113.949134][ T3282] x23: 0000000000000001 x22: 0000000000000001 x21: 0000000000000000 [ 113.950597][ T3282] x20: ffff0000c08fcad8 x19: ffff80008251e000 x18: ffffffffffffffff [ 113.952207][ T3282] x17: 0000000000000000 x16: 0000000000000000 x15: ffff800081746210 [ 113.953161][ T3282] x14: 0000000000000000 x13: 205d323832335420 x12: 5b5d353031313339 [ 113.954120][ T3282] x11: ffff800087093500 x10: 000000000000005d x9 : 00000000ffffffd0 [ 113.955078][ T3282] x8 : 7f7f7f7f7f7f7f7f x7 : ffff80008236ba90 x6 : c0000000ffff7fff [ 113.956036][ T3282] x5 : ffff000b34bf4dc8 x4 : ffff8000820aba90 x3 : 0000000000000001 [ 113.956994][ T3282] x2 : ffff800ab320f000 x1 : 841d1e35ac932e00 x0 : 0000000000000000 [ 113.957962][ T3282] Call trace: [ 113.958350][ T3282] pgalloc_tag_sub.part.66+0x154/0x164 [ 113.959000][ T3282] pgalloc_tag_sub+0x14/0x1c [ 113.959539][ T3282] free_unref_page+0xf4/0x4b8 [ 113.960096][ T3282] __folio_put+0xd4/0x120 [ 113.960614][ T3282] folio_put+0x24/0x50 [ 113.961103][ T3282] unpoison_memory+0x4f0/0x5b0 [ 113.961678][ T3282] hwpoison_unpoison+0x30/0x48 [hwpoison_inject] [ 113.962436][ T3282] simple_attr_write_xsigned.isra.34+0xec/0x1cc [ 113.963183][ T3282] simple_attr_write+0x38/0x48 [ 113.963750][ T3282] debugfs_attr_write+0x54/0x80 [ 113.964330][ T3282] full_proxy_write+0x68/0x98 [ 113.964880][ T3282] vfs_write+0xdc/0x4d0 [ 113.965372][ T3282] ksys_write+0x78/0x100 [ 113.965875][ T3282] __arm64_sys_write+0x24/0x30 [ 113.966440][ T3282] invoke_syscall+0x7c/0x104 [ 113.966984][ T3282] el0_svc_common.constprop.1+0x88/0x104 [ 113.967652][ T3282] do_el0_svc+0x2c/0x38 [ 113.968893][ T3282] el0_svc+0x3c/0x1b8 [ 113.969379][ T3282] el0t_64_sync_handler+0x98/0xbc [ 113.969980][ T3282] el0t_64_sync+0x19c/0x1a0 [ 113.970511][ T3282] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---

To fix this, clear the page tag reference after the page got isolated and accounted for.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-46790?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2024-46790?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2024-46790 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-46790 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as BELL-CVE-2024-46790, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-46790, GHSA-38r2-f5rc-fgw9, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-46790.

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