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Fencer Vulns
high 7.7

CVE-2021-47044 json

sched/fair: Fix shift-out-of-bounds in load_balance()

published 2024-02-28 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-33692

cvss
7.7
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 18%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

sched/fair: Fix shift-out-of-bounds in load_balance()

Syzbot reported a handful of occurrences where an sd->nr_balance_failed can grow to much higher values than one would expect.

A successful load_balance() resets it to 0; a failed one increments it. Once it gets to sd->cache_nice_tries + 3, this *should* trigger an active balance, which will either set it to sd->cache_nice_tries+1 or reset it to 0. However, in case the to-be-active-balanced task is not allowed to run on env->dst_cpu, then the increment is done without any further modification.

This could then be repeated ad nauseam, and would explain the absurdly high values reported by syzbot (86, 149). VincentG noted there is value in letting sd->cache_nice_tries grow, so the shift itself should be fixed. That means preventing:

""" If the value of the right operand is negative or is greater than or equal to the width of the promoted left operand, the behavior is undefined. """

Thus we need to cap the shift exponent to BITS_PER_TYPE(typeof(lefthand)) - 1.

I had a look around for other similar cases via coccinelle:

@expr@ position pos; expression E1; expression E2; @@ ( E1 >> E2@pos | E1 >> E2@pos )

@cst depends on expr@ position pos; expression expr.E1; constant cst; @@ ( E1 >> cst@pos | E1 << cst@pos )

@script:python depends on !cst@ pos << expr.pos; exp << expr.E2; @@ # Dirty hack to ignore constexpr if exp.upper() != exp: coccilib.report.print_report(pos[0], "Possible UB shift here")

The only other match in kernel/sched is rq_clock_thermal() which employs sched_thermal_decay_shift, and that exponent is already capped to 10, so that one is fine.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.10.37, 5.11.21, 5.12.4, 5.13
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.10.38-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47044

  • kernel-64kb SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS, Enterprise Storage 7.1 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.2 +5 more 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1
  • kernel-preempt SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.2 +3 more 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1.150300.18.92.5
  • kernel-rt SLE Micro 5.2, SLE Micro 5.1 5.3.18-150300.166.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2024:1489-1SUSE-SU-2024:1465-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2021-47044 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: sched/fair: Fix shift-out-of-bounds in load_balance()

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

0.27% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 18% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 7.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H
CNA 3.1 7.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.