CVE-2025-22090
NoneCVSS
—
EPSS
0.2%
Published
Apr 16, 2025
CISA due date
—
Cloudanix analysis
A Linux kernel bug can cause unexpected warnings or crashes when certain programs try to create new processes, so administrators should install the available operating-system updates.
- Exploitation
- Local Privilege
- Attacker needs
- Local User
- Complexity
- Low
- Impact
- Denial Of Service
- Component
- OS kernel
- Class
- Memory Corruption
- Remediation
- Upgrade
- Effort
- Medium
- Patch risk
- Low
What it actually does
The kernel fails to properly manage the VM_PAT flag and associated PAT reservations on a destination VMA during copy_page_range() when track_pfn_copy() succeeds but later page-table copy steps fail; this leaves untrack_pfn() attempting to read PAT information from absent page-table entries, triggering a warning in get_pat_info.
Why it matters to the business
Systems may experience kernel warnings or crashes during process creation or exit under memory-mapping workloads that use PAT, reducing stability in containerized or high-fork environments; the large number of affected Linux distributions increases the scope of required updates.
How an attack unfolds
An attacker crafts a process that maps memory with PAT attributes and forces a fork failure (via the supplied reproducer or equivalent resource pressure); the incomplete VMA cleanup path then calls untrack_pfn on a partially initialized VMA, surfacing the bug during exit_mmap in the failing clone operation.
How to fix it
Update the Linux kernel to commit a6623712ba8449876f0b3de9462831523fb851e4 or later; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 users should install thunderbird-128.5.0-1.el8_10 or newer packages that incorporate the fix.
How to confirm the fix worked
Confirm the running kernel contains commit a6623712ba8449876f0b3de9462831523fb851e4; attempt to run the published reproducer and verify that the get_pat_info WARNING no longer occurs.
Typical attack path
- Map memory requiring PAT reservation in the parent process
- Trigger fork under conditions that cause copy_page_range to fail after track_pfn_copy
- Kernel performs maple-tree cleanup and invokes untrack_pfn on the dst VMA
- get_pat_info is called on a page table that was never populated, emitting WARNING
How to detect it
Search kernel logs for the exact WARNING emitted by get_pat_info during untrack_pfn in the context of copy_process or exit_mmap; correlate with processes that recently performed fork and used PAT-mapped memory.
What your security team should do
- Prioritize kernel package updates on all x86 systems within the next maintenance window
- Monitor for the specific WARNING in memtype.c:983 after applying the fix
- Review workloads that perform frequent forks with special memory mappings for stability regressions
The record
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/mm/pat: Fix VM_PAT handling when fork() fails in copy_page_range() If track_pfn_copy() fails, we already added the dst VMA to the maple tree. As fork() fails, we'll cleanup the maple tree, and stumble over the dst VMA for which we neither performed any reservation nor copied any page tables. Consequently untrack_pfn() will see VM_PAT and try obtaining the PAT information from the page table -- which fails because the page table was not copied. The easiest fix would be to simply clear the VM_PAT flag of the dst VMA if track_pfn_copy() fails. However, the whole thing is about "simply" clearing the VM_PAT flag is shaky as well: if we passed track_pfn_copy() and performed a reservation, but copying the page tables fails, we'll simply clear the VM_PAT flag, not properly undoing the reservation ... which is also wrong. So let's fix it properly: set the VM_PAT flag only if the reservation succeeded (leaving it clear initially), and undo the reservation if anything goes wrong while copying the page tables: clearing the VM_PAT flag after undoing the reservation. Note that any copied page table entries will get zapped when the VMA will get removed later, after copy_page_range() succeeded; as VM_PAT is not set then, we won't try cleaning VM_PAT up once more and untrack_pfn() will be happy. Note that leaving these page tables in place without a reservation is not a problem, as we are aborting fork(); this process will never run. A reproducer can trigger this usually at the first try: https://gitlab.com/davidhildenbrand/scratchspace/-/raw/main/reproducers/pat_fork.c WARNING: CPU: 26 PID: 11650 at arch/x86/mm/pat/memtype.c:983 get_pat_info+0xf6/0x110 Modules linked in: ... CPU: 26 UID: 0 PID: 11650 Comm: repro3 Not tainted 6.12.0-rc5+ #92 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 1.16.3-2.fc40 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:get_pat_info+0xf6/0x110 ... Call Trace: <TASK> ... untrack_pfn+0x52/0x110 unmap_single_vma+0xa6/0xe0 unmap_vmas+0x105/0x1f0 exit_mmap+0xf6/0x460 __mmput+0x4b/0x120 copy_process+0x1bf6/0x2aa0 kernel_clone+0xab/0x440 __do_sys_clone+0x66/0x90 do_syscall_64+0x95/0x180 Likely this case was missed in: d155df53f310 ("x86/mm/pat: clear VM_PAT if copy_p4d_range failed") ... and instead of undoing the reservation we simply cleared the VM_PAT flag. Keep the documentation of these functions in include/linux/pgtable.h, one place is more than sufficient -- we should clean that up for the other functions like track_pfn_remap/untrack_pfn separately.
Affected packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Introduced | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian:11 | linux | 0 | No fix |
| Debian:12 | linux | 0 | No fix |
| Debian:13 | linux | 0 | No fix |
| Debian:13 | linux | 0 | 6.12.25-1 |
| Linux | Kernel | 2.6.29 | 6.1.160 |
| Linux | Kernel | 2.6.29 | 6.6.87 |
| Mageia:9 | kernel | 0 | 6.6.88-3.mga9 |
| Mageia:9 | kernel-linus | 0 | 6.6.88-1.mga9 |
| Mageia:9 | kmod-virtualbox | 0 | 7.0.24-70.mga9 |
| Mageia:9 | kmod-xtables-addons | 0 | 3.24-78.mga9 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP7 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 | kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP6-RT_Update_11 | 0 | 1-150600.1.3.2 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 | kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP6_Update_11 | 0 | 1-150600.13.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 | kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP6_Update_14 | 0 | 1-150600.13.3.4 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP7 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP7 | kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP7_Update_1 | 0 | 1-150700.15.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-64kb | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-64kb | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1.150600.12.22.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1.150600.12.28.4 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-zfcpdump | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-zfcpdump | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 | kernel-64kb | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.3.1.150700.17.2.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 | kernel-zfcpdump | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 | kernel-coco | 0 | 6.4.0-15061.21.coco15sp6.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 | kernel-coco | 0 | 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 | kernel-coco_debug | 0 | 6.4.0-15061.21.coco15sp6.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 | kernel-coco_debug | 0 | 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 | kernel-source-coco | 0 | 6.4.0-15061.21.coco15sp6.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 | kernel-source-coco | 0 | 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 | kernel-syms-coco | 0 | 6.4.0-15061.21.coco15sp6.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 | kernel-syms-coco | 0 | 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | kernel-docs | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | kernel-docs | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | kernel-syms | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | kernel-syms | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 | kernel-docs | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 | kernel-syms | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Legacy 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Legacy 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Legacy 15 SP7 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 | kernel-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.37.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 | kernel-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.48.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 | kernel-source-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.37.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 | kernel-source-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.48.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 | kernel-syms-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.37.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 | kernel-syms-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.48.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 | kernel-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.20.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 | kernel-source-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.20.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 | kernel-syms-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.20.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension 15 SP7 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150700.53.3.1 |
| SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 | kernel-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.39.1 |
| SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 | kernel-rt_debug | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.39.1 |
| SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 | kernel-source-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.39.1 |
| SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 | kernel-syms-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.39.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | dtb-aarch64 | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | dtb-aarch64 | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-64kb | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-64kb | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.37.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.48.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-debug | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-debug | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1.150600.12.22.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1.150600.12.28.4 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-docs | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-docs | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-kvmsmall | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-kvmsmall | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-obs-qa | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-obs-qa | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.39.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-rt_debug | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.39.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-source-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.37.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-source-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.48.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-source-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.39.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-syms | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-syms | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-syms-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.37.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-syms-azure | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.8.48.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-syms-rt | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.10.39.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-zfcpdump | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.50.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-zfcpdump | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.65.1 |
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