{"cve":"CVE-2024-46787","nvd":{"published":"2024-09-18T08:15:05.833","modified":"2026-10-30T13:17:35.830","status":"Modified","description":"In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\nuserfaultfd: fix checks for huge PMDs\n\nPatch series \"userfaultfd: fix races around pmd_trans_huge() check\", v2.\n\nThe pmd_trans_huge() code in mfill_atomic() is wrong in three different\nways depending on kernel version:\n\n1. The pmd_trans_huge() check is racy and can lead to a BUG_ON() (if you hit\n   the right two race windows) - I've tested this in a kernel build with\n   some extra mdelay() calls. See the commit message for a description\n   of the race scenario.\n   On older kernels (before 6.5), I think the same bug can even\n   theoretically lead to accessing transhuge page contents as a page table\n   if you hit the right 5 narrow race windows (I haven't tested this case).\n2. As pointed out by Qi Zheng, pmd_trans_huge() is not sufficient for\n   detecting PMDs that don't point to page tables.\n   On older kernels (before 6.5), you'd just have to win a single fairly\n   wide race to hit this.\n   I've tested this on 6.1 stable by racing migration (with a mdelay()\n   patched into try_to_migrate()) against UFFDIO_ZEROPAGE - on my x86\n   VM, that causes a kernel oops in ptlock_ptr().\n3. On newer kernels (>=6.5), for shmem mappings, khugepaged is allowed\n   to yank page tables out from under us (though I haven't tested that),\n   so I think the BUG_ON() checks in mfill_atomic() are just wrong.\n\nI decided to write two separate fixes for these (one fix for bugs 1+2, one\nfix for bug 3), so that the first fix can be backported to kernels\naffected by bugs 1+2.\n\n\nThis patch (of 2):\n\nThis fixes two issues.\n\nI discovered that the following race can occur:\n\n  mfill_atomic                other thread\n  ============                ============\n                              <zap PMD>\n  pmdp_get_lockless() [reads none pmd]\n  <bail if trans_huge>\n  <if none:>\n                              <pagefault creates transhuge zeropage>\n    __pte_alloc [no-op]\n                              <zap PMD>\n  <bail if pmd_trans_huge(*dst_pmd)>\n  BUG_ON(pmd_none(*dst_pmd))\n\nI have experimentally verified this in a kernel with extra mdelay() calls;\nthe BUG_ON(pmd_none(*dst_pmd)) triggers.\n\nOn kernels newer than commit 0d940a9b270b (\"mm/pgtable: allow\npte_offset_map[_lock]() to fail\"), this can't lead to anything worse than\na BUG_ON(), since the page table access helpers are actually designed to\ndeal with page tables concurrently disappearing; but on older kernels\n(<=6.4), I think we could probably theoretically race past the two\nBUG_ON() checks and end up treating a hugepage as a page table.\n\nThe second issue is that, as Qi Zheng pointed out, there are other types\nof huge PMDs that pmd_trans_huge() can't catch: devmap PMDs and swap PMDs\n(in particular, migration PMDs).\n\nOn <=6.4, this is worse than the first issue: If mfill_atomic() runs on a\nPMD that contains a migration entry (which just requires winning a single,\nfairly wide race), it will pass the PMD to pte_offset_map_lock(), which\nassumes that the PMD points to a page table.\n\nBreakage follows: First, the kernel tries to take the PTE lock (which will\ncrash or maybe worse if there is no \"struct page\" for the address bits in\nthe migration entry PMD - I think at least on X86 there usually is no\ncorresponding \"struct page\" thanks to the PTE inversion mitigation, amd64\nlooks different).\n\nIf that didn't crash, the kernel would next try to write a PTE into what\nit wrongly thinks is a page table.\n\nAs part of fixing these issues, get rid of the check for pmd_trans_huge()\nbefore __pte_alloc() - that's redundant, we're going to have to check for\nthat after the __pte_alloc() anyway.\n\nBackport note: pmdp_get_lockless() is pmd_read_atomic() in older kernels.","cvss_v4":null,"cvss_v3":{"version":"3.1","vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H","score":4.7},"cwes":[],"references":["https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3c6b4bcf37845c9359aed926324bed66bdd2448d","https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/71c186efc1b2cf1aeabfeff3b9bd5ac4c5ac14d8","https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/98cc18b1b71e23fe81a5194ed432b20c2d81a01a","https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b25c0767a6a18a8399f57c63e50b5cc19037e90a"],"products":["linux:linux_kernel"],"source":"nvd","synced_at":"2026-10-30T13:47:47.119061695+00:00"},"epss":{"cve":"CVE-2024-46787","score":0.0022,"percentile":0.12641,"date":"2026-10-30"},"kev":null,"osv":[],"attribution":["This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.","EPSS scores: FIRST Exploit Prediction Scoring System, https://www.first.org/epss","Known exploited vulnerabilities: CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog","Package advisories: OSV (https://osv.dev), from the GitHub Advisory Database, PyPA, Go, RustSec and other ecosystem databases, under CC-BY 4.0 or CC0","CVE records: the CVE Program's CVE List (https://www.cve.org), under its terms of use (https://www.cve.org/Legal/TermsOfUse). CVE is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation; this product is not affiliated with the CVE Program."]}