page_pool: Fix PP_MAGIC_MASK to avoid crashing on some 32-bit arches
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Local
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- High · High · High
- Fix status
- Partial Red Hat: 2 without a fix
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat.
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: page_pool: Fix PP_MAGIC_MASK to avoid crashing on some 32-bit arches Helge reported that the introduction of PP_MAGIC_MASK let to crashes on boot on his 32-bit parisc machine. The cause of this is the mask is set too wide, so the page_pool_page_is_pp() incurs false positives which crashes the machine. Just disabling the check in page_pool_is_pp() will lead to the page_pool code itself malfunctioning; so instead of doing this, this patch changes the define for PP_DMA_INDEX_BITS to avoid mistaking arbitrary kernel pointers for page_pool-tagged pages. The fix relies on the kernel pointers that alias with the pp_magic field always being above PAGE_OFFSET. With this assumption, we can use the lowest bit of the value of PAGE_OFFSET as the upper bound of the PP_DMA_INDEX_MASK, which should avoid the false positives. Because we cannot rely on PAGE_OFFSET always being a compile-time constant, nor on it always being >0, we fall back to disabling the dma_index storage when there are not enough bits available. This leaves us in the situation we were in before the patch in the Fixes tag, but only on a subset of architecture configurations. This seems to be the best we can do until the transition to page types in complete for page_pool pages. v2: - Make sure there's at least 8 bits available and that the PAGE_OFFSET bit calculation doesn't wrap
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Total
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 6.12.54, 6.16
- Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 6.12.54, 6.17.4, 6.18
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
| Product | Status | Plan or fix |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | Affected | No fix yet |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | Affected | No fix yet |
Not affected: 3 products
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2025-40199
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-79fg-r6v6-prp7
- 2026-10-16 CISA SSVC decision points changed
References
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Sources
- CVE-2025-40199 · CVE Program
- CVE-2025-40199 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-79fg-r6v6-prp7 · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2025-40199 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
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