Overview
About vulnerability
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
x86/mm/64: define ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK and arch_sync_kernel_mappings()
Define ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK and arch_sync_kernel_mappings() to ensure page tables are properly synchronized when calling p*d_populate_kernel().
For 5-level paging, synchronization is performed via pgd_populate_kernel(). In 4-level paging, pgd_populate() is a no-op, so synchronization is instead performed at the P4D level via p4d_populate_kernel().
This fixes intermittent boot failures on systems using 4-level paging and a large amount of persistent memory:
BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ffffe70000000034
#PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode
#PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page
PGD 0 P4D 0
Oops: 0002 [#1] SMP NOPTI
RIP: 0010:__init_single_page+0x9/0x6d
Call Trace:
It also fixes a crash in vmemmap_set_pmd() caused by accessing vmemmap before sync_global_pgds() [1]:
BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ffffeb3ff1200000
#PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode
#PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page
PGD 0 P4D 0
Oops: Oops: 0002 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI
Tainted: [W]=WARN
RIP: 0010:vmemmap_set_pmd+0xff/0x230
Details
- Affected product:
- AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU , TuxCare 9.6 ESU , Ubuntu 20.04 ELS
- Affected packages:
- linux @ 5.4.0 (+2 more)
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
x86/mm/64: define ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK and arch_sync_kernel_mappings()
Define ARCH_PAGE_TABLE_SYNC_MASK and arch_sync_kernel_mappings() to ensure page tables are properly synchronized when calling p*d_populate_kernel().
For 5-level paging, synchronization is performed via pgd_populate_kernel(). In 4-level paging, pgd_populate() is a no-op, so synchronization is instead performed at the P4D level via p4d_populate_kernel().
This fixes intermittent boot failures on systems using 4-level paging and a large amount of persistent memory:
BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ffffe70000000034
#PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode
#PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page
PGD 0 P4D 0
Oops: 0002 [#1] SMP NOPTI
RIP: 0010:__init_single_page+0x9/0x6d
Call Trace:
It also fixes a crash in vmemmap_set_pmd() caused by accessing vmemmap before sync_global_pgds() [1]:
BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ffffeb3ff1200000
#PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode
#PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page
PGD 0 P4D 0
Oops: Oops: 0002 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI
Tainted: [W]=WARN
RIP: 0010:vmemmap_set_pmd+0xff/0x230