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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2021-47094 json

KVM: x86/mmu: Don't advance iterator after restart due to yielding

published 2024-03-04 2 y ago modified 2026-08-05 3 mo ago also EUVD-2021-33742

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 12%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

KVM: x86/mmu: Don't advance iterator after restart due to yielding

After dropping mmu_lock in the TDP MMU, restart the iterator during tdp_iter_next() and do not advance the iterator. Advancing the iterator results in skipping the top-level SPTE and all its children, which is fatal if any of the skipped SPTEs were not visited before yielding.

When zapping all SPTEs, i.e. when min_level == root_level, restarting the iter and then invoking tdp_iter_next() is always fatal if the current gfn has as a valid SPTE, as advancing the iterator results in try_step_side() skipping the current gfn, which wasn't visited before yielding.

Sprinkle WARNs on iter->yielded being true in various helpers that are often used in conjunction with yielding, and tag the helper with __must_check to reduce the probabily of improper usage.

Failing to zap a top-level SPTE manifests in one of two ways. If a valid SPTE is skipped by both kvm_tdp_mmu_zap_all() and kvm_tdp_mmu_put_root(), the shadow page will be leaked and KVM will WARN accordingly.

WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 3509 at arch/x86/kvm/mmu/tdp_mmu.c:46 [kvm] RIP: 0010:kvm_mmu_uninit_tdp_mmu+0x3e/0x50 [kvm] Call Trace: <TASK> kvm_arch_destroy_vm+0x130/0x1b0 [kvm] kvm_destroy_vm+0x162/0x2a0 [kvm] kvm_vcpu_release+0x34/0x60 [kvm] __fput+0x82/0x240 task_work_run+0x5c/0x90 do_exit+0x364/0xa10 ? futex_unqueue+0x38/0x60 do_group_exit+0x33/0xa0 get_signal+0x155/0x850 arch_do_signal_or_restart+0xed/0x750 exit_to_user_mode_prepare+0xc5/0x120 syscall_exit_to_user_mode+0x1d/0x40 do_syscall_64+0x48/0xc0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae

If kvm_tdp_mmu_zap_all() skips a gfn/SPTE but that SPTE is then zapped by kvm_tdp_mmu_put_root(), KVM triggers a use-after-free in the form of marking a struct page as dirty/accessed after it has been put back on the free list. This directly triggers a WARN due to encountering a page with page_count() == 0, but it can also lead to data corruption and additional errors in the kernel.

WARNING: CPU: 7 PID: 1995658 at arch/x86/kvm/../../../virt/kvm/kvm_main.c:171 RIP: 0010:kvm_is_zone_device_pfn.part.0+0x9e/0xd0 [kvm] Call Trace: <TASK> kvm_set_pfn_dirty+0x120/0x1d0 [kvm] __handle_changed_spte+0x92e/0xca0 [kvm] __handle_changed_spte+0x63c/0xca0 [kvm] __handle_changed_spte+0x63c/0xca0 [kvm] __handle_changed_spte+0x63c/0xca0 [kvm] zap_gfn_range+0x549/0x620 [kvm] kvm_tdp_mmu_put_root+0x1b6/0x270 [kvm] mmu_free_root_page+0x219/0x2c0 [kvm] kvm_mmu_free_roots+0x1b4/0x4e0 [kvm] kvm_mmu_unload+0x1c/0xa0 [kvm] kvm_arch_destroy_vm+0x1f2/0x5c0 [kvm] kvm_put_kvm+0x3b1/0x8b0 [kvm] kvm_vcpu_release+0x4e/0x70 [kvm] __fput+0x1f7/0x8c0 task_work_run+0xf8/0x1a0 do_exit+0x97b/0x2230 do_group_exit+0xda/0x2a0 get_signal+0x3be/0x1e50 arch_do_signal_or_restart+0x244/0x17f0 exit_to_user_mode_prepare+0xcb/0x120 syscall_exit_to_user_mode+0x1d/0x40 do_syscall_64+0x4d/0x90 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae

Note, the underlying bug existed even before commit 1af4a96025b3 ("KVM: x86/mmu: Yield in TDU MMU iter even if no SPTES changed") moved calls to tdp_mmu_iter_cond_resched() to the beginning of loops, as KVM could still incorrectly advance past a top-level entry when yielding on a lower-level entry. But with respect to leaking shadow pages, the bug was introduced by yielding before processing the current gfn.

Alternatively, tdp_mmu_iter_cond_resched() could simply fall through, or callers could jump to their "retry" label. The downside of that approach is that tdp_mmu_iter_cond_resched() _must_ be called before anything else in the loop, and there's no easy way to enfornce that requirement.

Ideally, KVM would handling the cond_resched() fully within the iterator macro (the code is actually quite clean) and avoid this entire class of bugs, but that is extremely difficult do wh ---truncated---

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.15.12, 5.16
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.15.15-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47094

  • kernel-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.33.48.1
  • kernel-syms-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.33.48.1
  • kernel-source-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.33.48.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.59.1
  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.59.1
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.59.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.59.1
  • kernel-source SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP5, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.59.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2024:1490-1SUSE-SU-2024:1480-1SUSE-SU-2024:1466-1SUSE-SU-2024:1321-1SUSE-SU-2024:1320-1

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-2021-47094 updated cvss 7.1

kernel: KVM: x86/mmu: Don&#39;t advance iterator after restart due to yielding

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more
    affected: no fix available
  • 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 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

0.22% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 12% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CISA ADP 3.1 7.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H
CNA 3.1 7.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

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.