Bug 2468156 (CVE-2026-43404) - CVE-2026-43404 kernel: mm: Fix a hmm_range_fault() livelock / starvation problem
Summary: CVE-2026-43404 kernel: mm: Fix a hmm_range_fault() livelock / starvation problem
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-43404
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security DevOps Team
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-05-08 15:02 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-05-08 22:21 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-05-08 15:02:06 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

mm: Fix a hmm_range_fault() livelock / starvation problem

If hmm_range_fault() fails a folio_trylock() in do_swap_page,
trying to acquire the lock of a device-private folio for migration,
to ram, the function will spin until it succeeds grabbing the lock.

However, if the process holding the lock is depending on a work
item to be completed, which is scheduled on the same CPU as the
spinning hmm_range_fault(), that work item might be starved and
we end up in a livelock / starvation situation which is never
resolved.

This can happen, for example if the process holding the
device-private folio lock is stuck in
   migrate_device_unmap()->lru_add_drain_all()
sinc lru_add_drain_all() requires a short work-item
to be run on all online cpus to complete.

A prerequisite for this to happen is:
a) Both zone device and system memory folios are considered in
   migrate_device_unmap(), so that there is a reason to call
   lru_add_drain_all() for a system memory folio while a
   folio lock is held on a zone device folio.
b) The zone device folio has an initial mapcount > 1 which causes
   at least one migration PTE entry insertion to be deferred to
   try_to_migrate(), which can happen after the call to
   lru_add_drain_all().
c) No or voluntary only preemption.

This all seems pretty unlikely to happen, but indeed is hit by
the "xe_exec_system_allocator" igt test.

Resolve this by waiting for the folio to be unlocked if the
folio_trylock() fails in do_swap_page().

Rename migration_entry_wait_on_locked() to
softleaf_entry_wait_unlock() and update its documentation to
indicate the new use-case.

Future code improvements might consider moving
the lru_add_drain_all() call in migrate_device_unmap() to be
called *after* all pages have migration entries inserted.
That would eliminate also b) above.

v2:
- Instead of a cond_resched() in hmm_range_fault(),
  eliminate the problem by waiting for the folio to be unlocked
  in do_swap_page() (Alistair Popple, Andrew Morton)
v3:
- Add a stub migration_entry_wait_on_locked() for the
  !CONFIG_MIGRATION case. (Kernel Test Robot)
v4:
- Rename migrate_entry_wait_on_locked() to
  softleaf_entry_wait_on_locked() and update docs (Alistair Popple)
v5:
- Add a WARN_ON_ONCE() for the !CONFIG_MIGRATION
  version of softleaf_entry_wait_on_locked().
- Modify wording around function names in the commit message
  (Andrew Morton)

(cherry picked from commit a69d1ab971a624c6f112cea61536569d579c3215)


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