mm: migrate: fix getting incorrect page mapping during page migration
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Local
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- Denial of service
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · None · High
- Fix status
- Partial Red Hat: 5 fixed, 3 without a fix
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CISA ADP. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat. Impact type from CWE-476.
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm: migrate: fix getting incorrect page mapping during page migration When running stress-ng testing, we found below kernel crash after a few hours: Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 0000000000000000 pc : dentry_name+0xd8/0x224 lr : pointer+0x22c/0x370 sp : ffff800025f134c0 ...... Call trace: dentry_name+0xd8/0x224 pointer+0x22c/0x370 vsnprintf+0x1ec/0x730 vscnprintf+0x2c/0x60 vprintk_store+0x70/0x234 vprintk_emit+0xe0/0x24c vprintk_default+0x3c/0x44 vprintk_func+0x84/0x2d0 printk+0x64/0x88 __dump_page+0x52c/0x530 dump_page+0x14/0x20 set_migratetype_isolate+0x110/0x224 start_isolate_page_range+0xc4/0x20c offline_pages+0x124/0x474 memory_block_offline+0x44/0xf4 memory_subsys_offline+0x3c/0x70 device_offline+0xf0/0x120 ...... After analyzing the vmcore, I found this issue is caused by page migration. The scenario is that, one thread is doing page migration, and we will use the target page's ->mapping field to save 'anon_vma' pointer between page unmap and page move, and now the target page is locked and refcount is 1. Currently, there is another stress-ng thread performing memory hotplug, attempting to offline the target page that is being migrated. It discovers that the refcount of this target page is 1, preventing the offline operation, thus proceeding to dump the page. However, page_mapping() of the target page may return an incorrect file mapping to crash the system in dump_mapping(), since the target page->mapping only saves 'anon_vma' pointer without setting PAGE_MAPPING_ANON flag. There are seveval ways to fix this issue: (1) Setting the PAGE_MAPPING_ANON flag for target page's ->mapping when saving 'anon_vma', but this can confuse PageAnon() for PFN walkers, since the target page has not built mappings yet. (2) Getting the page lock to call page_mapping() in __dump_page() to avoid crashing the system, however, there are still some PFN walkers that call page_mapping() without holding the page lock, such as compaction. (3) Using target page->private field to save the 'anon_vma' pointer and 2 bits page state, just as page->mapping records an anonymous page, which can remove the page_mapping() impact for PFN walkers and also seems a simple way. So I choose option 3 to fix this issue, and this can also fix other potential issues for PFN walkers, such as compaction.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
Remediation
- Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 6.1.191
- Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 6.1.191, 6.6.15, 6.7.3, 6.8
Red Hat 1 advisory
- RHSA-2025:1659 Released 2025-02-19 · Red Hat rating Moderatekernel security update
- Red Hat CodeReady Linux Builder (v. 9) kernel-tools-libs-devel-5.14.0-503.26.1.el9_5, libperf-5.14.0-503.26.1.el9_5
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) kernel-64k-debug-devel-5.14.0-503.26.1.el9_5, kernel-64k-debug-devel-matched-5.14.0-503.26.1.el9_5, kernel-64k-devel-5.14.0-503.26.1.el9_5 +11
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 9) bpftool-7.4.0-503.26.1.el9_5, kernel-5.14.0-503.26.1.el9_5, kernel-64k-5.14.0-503.26.1.el9_5 +30
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Real Time (v. 9) kernel-rt-5.14.0-503.26.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-core-5.14.0-503.26.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-debug-5.14.0-503.26.1.el9_5 +9
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux Real Time for NFV (v. 9) kernel-rt-5.14.0-503.26.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-core-5.14.0-503.26.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-debug-5.14.0-503.26.1.el9_5 +11
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
| Product | Status | Plan or fix |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | Affected | No fix yet |
| Red Hat CodeReady Linux Builder (v. 9) | Fixed | RHSA-2025:1659 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) | Fixed | RHSA-2025:1659 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 9) | Fixed | RHSA-2025:1659 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux Real Time (v. 9) | Fixed | RHSA-2025:1659 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux Real Time for NFV (v. 9) | Fixed | RHSA-2025:1659 |
Not affected: 1 product
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2023-52490
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-j4qq-hcfp-m638
- 2026-10-30 Fix available: Linux/Linux@1ce870a2d85969e2c9dafd2af20f205494a490f6, Linux/[email protected] · CNA
- 2026-10-30 1 new reference · CNA
References
Patch 3
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Sources
- CVE-2023-52490 · CVE Program
- CVE-2023-52490 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-j4qq-hcfp-m638 · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2023-52490 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
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