mm/hugetlb: fix boot panic with CONFIG_DEBUG_VM and HVO bootmem pages
Key facts
- Attack vector
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- Privileges required
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- User interaction
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- Attack complexity
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- Impact type
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- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
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- Fix status
- Partial Red Hat: 1 without a fix
No CVSS vector from any source. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat.
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/hugetlb: fix boot panic with CONFIG_DEBUG_VM and HVO bootmem pages Patch series "mm: Refactor bootmem gigantic hugepage allocation", v4. This series is split out from the earlier larger series "mm: Generalize HVO for HugeTLB and device DAX" [1]. It collects the first 19 patches of that series as a standalone set of fixes and preparatory cleanups around bootmem HugeTLB handling, sparse initialization ordering, and related vmemmap setup. The first patches fix a few bugs found while reviewing the existing code, including incorrect bootmem HVO handling, wrong vmemmap registration arguments, a powerpc compound-vmemmap tracking bug, and too-late initialization of gigantic bootmem HugeTLB struct pages. The rest of the series reorders early memory initialization so the relevant zone state is available before sparse and HugeTLB boot-time setup runs, then simplifies the remaining bootmem gigantic hugepage allocation path and removes code made obsolete by that rework. At a high level: - patches [1-4] fix boot-time and arch-specific bugs - patches [5-12] reorder and simplify sparse/mm/hugetlb early init - patches [13-19] refactor bootmem gigantic hugepage allocation and remove obsolete helpers and state This patch (of 19): Commit 622026e87c40 ("mm/hugetlb: remove fake head pages") switched HVO to reuse per-zone shared tail pages from zone->vmemmap_tails[]. Those shared tail pages were initialized in hugetlb_vmemmap_init(), but bootmem HugeTLB folios are prepared earlier from gather_bootmem_prealloc(). With hugetlb_free_vmemmap=on, prep_and_add_bootmem_folios() can access pageblock flags on bootmem HugeTLB pages whose mirrored tail struct pages already point to the shared tail page. On CONFIG_DEBUG_VM kernels, get_pfnblock_bitmap_bitidx() then dereferences the still-uninitialized shared tail page and can panic during boot. Initialize zone->vmemmap_tails[] from gather_bootmem_prealloc(), before bootmem HugeTLB folios are processed, and drop the later initialization from hugetlb_vmemmap_init(). This bug only affects CONFIG_DEBUG_VM kernels, where the relevant assertion is evaluated.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
Not available: CISA has not published SSVC decision points for this record.
Affected products
Remediation
- Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 7.2.4, 7.3
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Low. 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 |
Not affected: 6 products
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
- Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4
- Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-93232
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-rjqq-v75c-fv5f
- 2026-10-19 Fix available: Linux/[email protected] · CNA
- 2026-10-21 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
- 2026-10-21 CVSS score added · Red Hat
- 2026-11-07 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
References
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Sources
- CVE-2026-93232 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-93232 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-rjqq-v75c-fv5f · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2026-93232 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
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