published January 14, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
kernel/kexec: fix IMA when allocation happens in CMA area
*** Bug description ***
When I tested kexec with the latest kernel, I ran into the following warning:
[ 40.712410] ------------[ cut here ]------------
[ 40.712576] WARNING: CPU: 2 PID: 1562 at kernel/kexec_core.c:1001 kimage_map_segment+0x144/0x198
[...]
[ 40.816047] Call trace:
[ 40.818498] kimage_map_segment+0x144/0x198 (P)
[ 40.823221] ima_kexec_post_load+0x58/0xc0
[ 40.827246] __do_sys_kexec_file_load+0x29c/0x368
[...]
[ 40.855423] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---
*** How to reproduce ***
This bug is only triggered when the kexec target address is allocated in
the CMA area. If no CMA area is reserved in the kernel, use the "cma="
option in the kernel command line to reserve one.
*** Root cause ***
The commit 07d24902977e ("kexec: enable CMA based contiguous
allocation") allocates the kexec target address directly on the CMA area
to avoid copying during the jump. In this case, there is no IND_SOURCE
for the kexec segment. But the current implementation of
kimage_map_segment() assumes that IND_SOURCE pages exist and map them
into a contiguous virtual address by vmap().
*** Solution ***
If IMA segment is allocated in the CMA area, use its page_address()
directly.