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Reference page — cumulative record through Wednesday, August 19, 2026 UTC. Reference pages update as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record.

CVE-2024-46787MEDIUM
Linux Linux — userfaultfd: fix checks for huge PMDs
  AV  AC  PR  UI  S  C  I  A   CVSS    EPSS   %ile   KEV
   L   H   L   N  U  N  N  H    4.7   .0022   12.9     —
AFFECTED
  Product  Versions                                    Fixed
  Linux    c1a4de99fada21e2e9251e52cbb51eff5aadc757 –  —
  Linux    4.3 –                                       6.6.51
TIMELINE
  Sep 11  Reserved by Linux
  Sep 18  Published (CNA: Linux)
  Aug 4   RESCORED — CVE-2024-46787 (Linux). CVSS 7.8 → 4.7 (NVD).
CNA: Linux · CVSS v3.1 · 3 references · NVD status: Modified

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: userfaultfd: fix checks for huge PMDs Patch series "userfaultfd: fix races around pmd_trans_huge() check", v2. The pmd_trans_huge() code in mfill_atomic() is wrong in three different ways depending on kernel version: 1. The pmd_trans_huge() check is racy and can lead to a BUG_ON() (if you hit the right two race windows) - I've tested this in a kernel build with some extra mdelay() calls. See the commit message for a description of the race scenario. On older kernels (before 6.5), I think the same bug can even theoretically lead to accessing transhuge page contents as a page table if you hit the right 5 narrow race windows (I haven't tested this case). 2. As pointed out by Qi Zheng, pmd_trans_huge() is not sufficient for detecting PMDs that don't point to page tables. On older kernels (before 6.5), you'd just have to win a single fairly wide race to hit this. I've tested this on 6.1 stable by racing migration (with a mdelay() patched into try_to_migrate()) against UFFDIO_ZEROPAGE - on my x86 VM, that causes a kernel oops in ptlock_ptr(). 3. On newer kernels (>=6.5), for shmem mappings, khugepaged is allowed to yank page tables out from under us (though I haven't tested that), so I think the BUG_ON() checks in mfill_atomic() are just wrong. I decided to write two separate fixes for these (one fix for bugs 1+2, one fix for bug 3), so that the first fix can be backported to kernels affected by bugs 1+2. This patch (of 2): This fixes two issues. I discovered that the following race can occur: mfill_atomic other thread ============ ============ <zap PMD> pmdp_get_lockless() [reads none pmd] <bail if trans_huge> <if none:> <pagefault creates transhuge zeropage> __pte_alloc [no-op] <zap PMD> <bail if pmd_trans_huge(*dst_pmd)> BUG_ON(pmd_none(*dst_pmd)) I have experimentally verified this in a kernel with extra mdelay() calls; the BUG_ON(pmd_none(*dst_pmd)) triggers. On kernels newer than commit 0d940a9b270b ("mm/pgtable: allow pte_offset_map[_lock]() to fail"), this can't lead to anything worse than a BUG_ON(), since the page table access helpers are actually designed to deal with page tables concurrently disappearing; but on older kernels (<=6.4), I think we could probably theoretically race past the two BUG_ON() checks and end up treating a hugepage as a page table. The second issue is that, as Qi Zheng pointed out, there are other types of huge PMDs that pmd_trans_huge() can't catch: devmap PMDs and swap PMDs (in particular, migration PMDs). On <=6.4, this is worse than the first issue: If mfill_atomic() runs on a PMD that contains a migration entry (which just requires winning a single, fairly wide race), it will pass the PMD to pte_offset_map_lock(), which assumes that the PMD points to a page table. Breakage follows: First, the kernel tries to take the PTE lock (which will crash or maybe worse if there is no "struct page" for the address bits in the migration entry PMD - I think at least on X86 there usually is no corresponding "struct page" thanks to the PTE inversion mitigation, amd64 looks different). If that didn't crash, the kernel would next try to write a PTE into what it wrongly thinks is a page table. As part of fixing these issues, get rid of the check for pmd_trans_huge() before __pte_alloc() - that's redundant, we're going to have to check for that after the __pte_alloc() anyway. Backport note: pmdp_get_lockless() is pmd_read_atomic() in older kernels.

Lifecycle

Complete event history — 3 events, chronological
DateEventDetail
September 11, 2024ReservedReserved by Linux
September 18, 2024PublishedPublished (CNA: Linux)
August 4, 2026RESCOREDRESCORED — CVE-2024-46787 (Linux). CVSS 7.8 → 4.7 (NVD).

Affected

Affected products and packages — 2 rows
VendorProduct / PackageEcosystemVersion introducedFixed
LinuxLinuxc1a4de99fada21e2e9251e52cbb51eff5aadc757
LinuxLinux4.36.6.51

References (3)

Related

Authoritative record: CVE-2024-46787 at cve.org

Vendors: linux

About this page

This is a reference page, not a dated page of record. It assembles the complete lifecycle of CVE-2024-46787 from the CVE Program record, NVD enrichment, the CISA KEV catalog, EPSS, and OSV advisories. The box score's numbers (CVSS, EPSS, KEV status) are current as of Wednesday, August 19, 2026 UTC and are re-derived as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record. The authoritative source for this identifier is cve.org.