Overview
About vulnerability
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
arm64: tlb: Flush walk cache when unsharing PMD tables
When huge_pmd_unshare() is called to unshare a PMD table, the tlb_unshare_pmd_ptdesc() function sets tlb->unshared_tables=true but the aarch64 tlb_flush() only checked tlb->freed_tables to determine whether to use TLBF_NONE (vae1is, invalidates walk cache) or TLBF_NOWALKCACHE (vale1is, leaf-only).
This caused the stale PMD page table entry to remain in the walk cache after unshare, potentially leading to incorrect page table walks.
Fix by including unshared_tables in the check, so that when unsharing tables, TLBF_NONE is used and the walk cache is properly invalidated.
Here is the detailed distinction between vae1is and vale1is:
| Instruction Combination | Actual Invalidation Scope |
|---|---|
VAE1IS + TTL=0 |
All entries at all levels (full invalidation) |
VAE1IS + TTL=2 (L2) |
Non-leaf at Level 0/1 + leaf at Level 2 |
VALE1IS + TTL=0 |
Leaf entries at all levels (non-leaf not cleared) |
VALE1IS + TTL=2 (L2) |
Leaf entry at Level 2 only |
Details
- Affected product:
- AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU , CentOS 8.4 ELS , CentOS 8.5 ELS , CentOS Stream 8 ELS , TuxCare 9.6 ESU
- Affected packages:
- kernel @ 5.14.0 (+4 more)
Fixes
KernelCare state
Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.
| Operating system | Status | Covered kernels |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Linux 2023 | Planned | — |
| Debian 12 | Planned | — |