published April 22, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
mm/damon/core: avoid use of half-online-committed context
One major usage of damon_call() is online DAMON parameters update. It is
done by calling damon_commit_ctx() inside the damon_call() callback
function. damon_commit_ctx() can fail for two reasons: 1) invalid
parameters and 2) internal memory allocation failures. In case of
failures, the damon_ctx that attempted to be updated (commit destination)
can be partially updated (or, corrupted from a perspective), and therefore
shouldn't be used anymore. The function only ensures the damon_ctx object
can safely deallocated using damon_destroy_ctx().
The API callers are, however, calling damon_commit_ctx() only after
asserting the parameters are valid, to avoid damon_commit_ctx() fails due
to invalid input parameters. But it can still theoretically fail if the
internal memory allocation fails. In the case, DAMON may run with the
partially updated damon_ctx. This can result in unexpected behaviors
including even NULL pointer dereference in case of damos_commit_dests()
failure [1]. Such allocation failure is arguably too small to fail, so
the real world impact would be rare. But, given the bad consequence, this
needs to be fixed.
Avoid such partially-committed (maybe-corrupted) damon_ctx use by saving
the damon_commit_ctx() failure on the damon_ctx object. For this,
introduce damon_ctx->maybe_corrupted field. damon_commit_ctx() sets it
when it is failed. kdamond_call() checks if the field is set after each
damon_call_control->fn() is executed. If it is set, ignore remaining
callback requests and return. All kdamond_call() callers including
kdamond_fn() also check the maybe_corrupted field right after
kdamond_call() invocations. If the field is set, break the kdamond_fn()
main loop so that DAMON sill doesn't use the context that might be
corrupted.
[[email protected]: let kdamond_call() with cancel regardless of maybe_corrupted]