Spurious warning in Linux KVM arm64 stage 2 teardown race
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: 4 without a fix
No CVSS vector from any source. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat.
Summary
The Linux kernel from 6.11 contains a race in KVM arm64 stage 2 page table handling. When the host tears down stage 2 page tables while a migration unmap is running, stage2_apply_range() returns -EINVAL and __unmap_stage2_range() triggers a spurious kernel warning. The race is benign and the warning does not reflect a real error.
Written with Claude Haiku 5.5 from the sources below · 2026-11-07
Description from the CNA
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: arm64: Fix spurious warning for benign stage 2 teardown race kvmtool was used to establish an L1 guest with 8 CPUs and 8 GiB of RAM, an L2 guest with 4 CPUs and 4 GiB of RAM and an L3 guest with 2 CPUs and 2 GiB of RAM, all of which was then exited. Under memory pressure in the L0 host warnings were observed due to migration triggered by compaction: WARNING: arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c:336 at __unmap_stage2_range+0x64/0x80, CPU#5: kcompactd0/66 Which was, in turn, triggered by an MMU notifier for the host invalidation: mmu_notifier_invalidate_range_start() -> ... -> kvm_mmu_notifier_invalidate_range_start() -> kvm_mmu_unmap_gfn_range() -> kvm_unmap_gfn_range() -> kvm_nested_s2_unmap() -> kvm_stage2_unmap_range() -> __unmap_stage2_range() -> stage2_apply_range() <- -EINVAL, triggering a WARN_ON() Racing with L0's teardown of stage 2 page tables: exit_mm() -> mmput() -> __mmput() -> exit_mmap() -> mmu_notifier_release() -> ... -> kvm_mmu_notifier_release() -> kvm_flush_shadow_all() -> kvm_arch_flush_shadow_all() -> kvm_free_stage2_pgd() -> [ acquire kvm->mmu_lock for write ] -> mmu->pgt = NULL [ among other tasks ] -> [ release kvm->mmu_lock for write ] It turns out there is a benign race resulting in a spurious warning: Thread A - notify: migration | Thread B - notify: release -------------------------------|--------------------------------- < kvm->mmu_lock held > | stage2_apply_range() | get mmu->pgt, check !NULL | ... | kvm_arch_flush_shadow_all() cond_resched_rwlock_write(); | < contend, sleep kvm->mmu_lock > < drop kvm->mmu_lock > | < acquire kvm->mmu_lock> | ... | kvm_free_stage2_pgd() | mmu->pgt = NULL | < invalidate MMU > | ... | < release kvm->mmu_lock > [ scheduled ] | stage2_apply_range() | < loop to next > | get, mmu->pgt, check !NULL | is NULL, return -EINVAL | __unmap_stage2_range() | WARN_ON(-EINVAL) <--- entirely spurious - the race was handled correctly. Fix the spurious warning by updating stage2_apply_range() to no longer treat concurrent PGT teardown on lock release as an error - whether the walker is tearing down page tables or doing something else this is a legitimate reason to abort the operation without error. This keeps the warning in place for all other circumstances. In practice only __unmap_stage2_range() actually does anything with the error so this only impacts that.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
Not available: CISA has not published SSVC decision points for this record.
Affected products
Remediation
Update the Linux kernel to 6.12.112, 6.18.55, 7.2.9 or 7.3. Red Hat lists no available fix for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 and Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5.
Written with Claude Haiku 5.5 from the sources below · 2026-11-07
- Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 6.12.112, 6.18.55, 7.2.9, 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 10 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
Not affected: 4 products
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
Timeline
- 2026-10-18 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-98468
- 2026-10-18 Alias added: GHSA-5gcw-m9q3-vcxx
- 2026-10-19 Fix available: Linux/[email protected] · CNA
- 2026-10-20 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
- 2026-10-20 CVSS score added · Red Hat
- 2026-11-07 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
References
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Sources
- CVE-2026-98468 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-98468 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-5gcw-m9q3-vcxx · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2026-98468 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
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