# CVE-2025-21866: powerpc/code-patching: Fix KASAN hit by not flagging text patching area as VM_ALLOC

> A KASAN vmalloc-out-of-bounds write in the PowerPC code patching area can cause a kernel crash during BPF JIT compilation.

- **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:** 12 Mar 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2025-21866, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-21866, GHSA-p4mq-5hwr-hc6r, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-21866, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-21866, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-21866

## What is CVE-2025-21866?

CVE-2025-21866 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 12 Mar 2025. 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:

powerpc/code-patching: Fix KASAN hit by not flagging text patching area as VM_ALLOC

Erhard reported the following KASAN hit while booting his PowerMac G4
with a KASAN-enabled kernel 6.13-rc6:

  BUG: KASAN: vmalloc-out-of-bounds in copy_to_kernel_nofault+0xd8/0x1c8
  Write of size 8 at addr f1000000 by task chronyd/1293

  CPU: 0 UID: 123 PID: 1293 Comm: chronyd Tainted: G        W          6.13.0-rc6-PMacG4 #2
  Tainted: [W]=WARN
  Hardware name: PowerMac3,6 7455 0x80010303 PowerMac
  Call Trace:
  [c2437590] [c1631a84] dump_stack_lvl+0x70/0x8c (unreliable)
  [c24375b0] [c0504998] print_report+0xdc/0x504
  [c2437610] [c050475c] kasan_report+0xf8/0x108
  [c2437690] [c0505a3c] kasan_check_range+0x24/0x18c
  [c24376a0] [c03fb5e4] copy_to_kernel_nofault+0xd8/0x1c8
  [c24376c0] [c004c014] patch_instructions+0x15c/0x16c
  [c2437710] [c00731a8] bpf_arch_text_copy+0x60/0x7c
  [c2437730] [c0281168] bpf_jit_binary_pack_finalize+0x50/0xac
  [c2437750] [c0073cf4] bpf_int_jit_compile+0xb30/0xdec
  [c2437880] [c0280394] bpf_prog_select_runtime+0x15c/0x478
  [c24378d0] [c1263428] bpf_prepare_filter+0xbf8/0xc14
  [c2437990] [c12677ec] bpf_prog_create_from_user+0x258/0x2b4
  [c24379d0] [c027111c] do_seccomp+0x3dc/0x1890
  [c2437ac0] [c001d8e0] system_call_exception+0x2dc/0x420
  [c2437f30] [c00281ac] ret_from_syscall+0x0/0x2c
  --- interrupt: c00 at 0x5a1274
  NIP:  005a1274 LR: 006a3b3c CTR: 005296c8
  REGS: c2437f40 TRAP: 0c00   Tainted: G        W           (6.13.0-rc6-PMacG4)
  MSR:  0200f932 <VEC,EE,PR,FP,ME,IR,DR,RI>  CR: 24004422  XER: 00000000

  GPR00: 00000166 af8f3fa0 a7ee3540 00000001 00000000 013b6500 005a5858 0200f932
  GPR08: 00000000 00001fe9 013d5fc8 005296c8 2822244c 00b2fcd8 00000000 af8f4b57
  GPR16: 00000000 00000001 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000001 00000000 00000002
  GPR24: 00afdbb0 00000000 00000000 00000000 006e0004 013ce060 006e7c1c 00000001
  NIP [005a1274] 0x5a1274
  LR [006a3b3c] 0x6a3b3c
  --- interrupt: c00

  The buggy address belongs to the virtual mapping at
   [f1000000, f1002000) created by:
   text_area_cpu_up+0x20/0x190

  The buggy address belongs to the physical page:
  page: refcount:1 mapcount:0 mapping:00000000 index:0x0 pfn:0x76e30
  flags: 0x80000000(zone=2)
  raw: 80000000 00000000 00000122 00000000 00000000 00000000 ffffffff 00000001
  raw: 00000000
  page dumped because: kasan: bad access detected

  Memory state around the buggy address:
   f0ffff00: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
   f0ffff80: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
  >f1000000: f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8
             ^
   f1000080: f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8
   f1000100: f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8
  ==================================================================

f8 corresponds to KASAN_VMALLOC_INVALID which means the area is not
initialised hence not supposed to be used yet.

Powerpc text patching infrastructure allocates a virtual memory area
using get_vm_area() and flags it as VM_ALLOC. But that flag is meant
to be used for vmalloc() and vmalloc() allocated memory is not
supposed to be used before a call to __vmalloc_node_range() which is
never called for that area.

That went undetected until commit e4137f08816b ("mm, kasan, kmsan:
instrument copy_from/to_kernel_nofault")

The area allocated by text_area_cpu_up() is not vmalloc memory, it is
mapped directly on demand when needed by map_kernel_page(). There is
no VM flag corresponding to such usage, so just pass no flag. That way
the area will be unpoisonned and usable immediately.

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

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-21866?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-21866?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-21866 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-21866 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-2025-21866 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-21866 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 12 Mar 2025. 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-2025-21866 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-2025-21866/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-21866/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-21866
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-21866
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-21866

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-21866/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.