High · published September 16, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
mm/page_alloc: don't spin_trylock() in NMI on UP
Patch series "mm/page_alloc: fixes for free_pages_nolock() on RT/UP".
Pre-existing bugs found by Sashiko during review of this other series:
https://lore.kernel.org/all/[email protected]/
I have not reproduced these bugs, and I suspect there is no real-world
user that is affected by them.
This patch (of 2):
As noted in can_spin_trylock(), using this is unsafe in this context.
commit 620b46ed6ae17 ("mm/page_alloc: return NULL early from
alloc_frozen_pages_nolock() in NMI on UP") fixed this on the alloc side
but missed the free side.
Impact: If BPF programs using these features in NMI (probably tracing) are
present on non-SMP builds this might crash the kernel and is probably
exploitable by local attackers for privilege escalation.