CVE-2024-50140 sched/core: Disable page allocation in task_tick_mm_cid()

What is CVE-2024-50140?

CVE-2024-50140 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 7 Nov 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:

sched/core: Disable page allocation in task_tick_mm_cid()

With KASAN and PREEMPT_RT enabled, calling task_work_add() in task_tick_mm_cid() may cause the following splat.

[ 63.696416] BUG: sleeping function called from invalid context at kernel/locking/spinlock_rt.c:48 [ 63.696416] in_atomic(): 1, irqs_disabled(): 1, non_block: 0, pid: 610, name: modprobe [ 63.696416] preempt_count: 10001, expected: 0 [ 63.696416] RCU nest depth: 1, expected: 1

This problem is caused by the following call trace.

sched_tick() [ acquire rq->__lock ] -> task_tick_mm_cid() -> task_work_add() -> __kasan_record_aux_stack() -> kasan_save_stack() -> stack_depot_save_flags() -> alloc_pages_mpol_noprof() -> __alloc_pages_noprof() -> get_page_from_freelist() -> rmqueue() -> rmqueue_pcplist() -> __rmqueue_pcplist() -> rmqueue_bulk() -> rt_spin_lock()

The rq lock is a raw_spinlock_t. We can't sleep while holding it. IOW, we can't call alloc_pages() in stack_depot_save_flags().

The task_tick_mm_cid() function with its task_work_add() call was introduced by commit 223baf9d17f2 ("sched: Fix performance regression introduced by mm_cid") in v6.4 kernel.

Fortunately, there is a kasan_record_aux_stack_noalloc() variant that calls stack_depot_save_flags() while not allowing it to allocate new pages. To allow task_tick_mm_cid() to use task_work without page allocation, a new TWAF_NO_ALLOC flag is added to enable calling kasan_record_aux_stack_noalloc() instead of kasan_record_aux_stack() if set. The task_tick_mm_cid() function is modified to add this new flag.

The possible downside is the missing stack trace in a KASAN report due to new page allocation required when task_work_add_noallloc() is called which should be rare.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-50140?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2024-50140?

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-2024-50140 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-50140 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as AZL-53537, BELL-CVE-2024-50140, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-50140, GHSA-gvrc-62gf-cx56, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-50140.