Bug 2429598 (CVE-2025-71109)

Summary: CVE-2025-71109 kernel: MIPS: ftrace: Fix memory corruption when kernel is located beyond 32 bits
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
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OS: Linux   
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-01-14 16:03:28 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

MIPS: ftrace: Fix memory corruption when kernel is located beyond 32 bits

Since commit e424054000878 ("MIPS: Tracing: Reduce the overhead of
dynamic Function Tracer"), the macro UASM_i_LA_mostly has been used,
and this macro can generate more than 2 instructions. At the same
time, the code in ftrace assumes that no more than 2 instructions can
be generated, which is why it stores them in an int[2] array. However,
as previously noted, the macro UASM_i_LA_mostly (and now UASM_i_LA)
causes a buffer overflow when _mcount is beyond 32 bits. This leads to
corruption of the variables located in the __read_mostly section.

This corruption was observed because the variable
__cpu_primary_thread_mask was corrupted, causing a hang very early
during boot.

This fix prevents the corruption by avoiding the generation of
instructions if they could exceed 2 instructions in
length. Fortunately, insn_la_mcount is only used if the instrumented
code is located outside the kernel code section, so dynamic ftrace can
still be used, albeit in a more limited scope. This is still
preferable to corrupting memory and/or crashing the kernel.