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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2022-49440 json

powerpc/rtas: Keep MSR[RI] set when calling RTAS

published 2025-02-26 20 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2022-54789

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
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:

powerpc/rtas: Keep MSR[RI] set when calling RTAS

RTAS runs in real mode (MSR[DR] and MSR[IR] unset) and in 32-bit big endian mode (MSR[SF,LE] unset).

The change in MSR is done in enter_rtas() in a relatively complex way, since the MSR value could be hardcoded.

Furthermore, a panic has been reported when hitting the watchdog interrupt while running in RTAS, this leads to the following stack trace:

watchdog: CPU 24 Hard LOCKUP watchdog: CPU 24 TB:997512652051031, last heartbeat TB:997504470175378 (15980ms ago) ... Supported: No, Unreleased kernel CPU: 24 PID: 87504 Comm: drmgr Kdump: loaded Tainted: G E X 5.14.21-150400.71.1.bz196362_2-default #1 SLE15-SP4 (unreleased) 0d821077ef4faa8dfaf370efb5fdca1fa35f4e2c NIP: 000000001fb41050 LR: 000000001fb4104c CTR: 0000000000000000 REGS: c00000000fc33d60 TRAP: 0100 Tainted: G E X (5.14.21-150400.71.1.bz196362_2-default) MSR: 8000000002981000 <SF,VEC,VSX,ME> CR: 48800002 XER: 20040020 CFAR: 000000000000011c IRQMASK: 1 GPR00: 0000000000000003 ffffffffffffffff 0000000000000001 00000000000050dc GPR04: 000000001ffb6100 0000000000000020 0000000000000001 000000001fb09010 GPR08: 0000000020000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 GPR12: 80040000072a40a8 c00000000ff8b680 0000000000000007 0000000000000034 GPR16: 000000001fbf6e94 000000001fbf6d84 000000001fbd1db0 000000001fb3f008 GPR20: 000000001fb41018 ffffffffffffffff 000000000000017f fffffffffffff68f GPR24: 000000001fb18fe8 000000001fb3e000 000000001fb1adc0 000000001fb1cf40 GPR28: 000000001fb26000 000000001fb460f0 000000001fb17f18 000000001fb17000 NIP [000000001fb41050] 0x1fb41050 LR [000000001fb4104c] 0x1fb4104c Call Trace: Instruction dump: XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX Oops: Unrecoverable System Reset, sig: 6 [#1] LE PAGE_SIZE=64K MMU=Hash SMP NR_CPUS=2048 NUMA pSeries ... Supported: No, Unreleased kernel CPU: 24 PID: 87504 Comm: drmgr Kdump: loaded Tainted: G E X 5.14.21-150400.71.1.bz196362_2-default #1 SLE15-SP4 (unreleased) 0d821077ef4faa8dfaf370efb5fdca1fa35f4e2c NIP: 000000001fb41050 LR: 000000001fb4104c CTR: 0000000000000000 REGS: c00000000fc33d60 TRAP: 0100 Tainted: G E X (5.14.21-150400.71.1.bz196362_2-default) MSR: 8000000002981000 <SF,VEC,VSX,ME> CR: 48800002 XER: 20040020 CFAR: 000000000000011c IRQMASK: 1 GPR00: 0000000000000003 ffffffffffffffff 0000000000000001 00000000000050dc GPR04: 000000001ffb6100 0000000000000020 0000000000000001 000000001fb09010 GPR08: 0000000020000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 GPR12: 80040000072a40a8 c00000000ff8b680 0000000000000007 0000000000000034 GPR16: 000000001fbf6e94 000000001fbf6d84 000000001fbd1db0 000000001fb3f008 GPR20: 000000001fb41018 ffffffffffffffff 000000000000017f fffffffffffff68f GPR24: 000000001fb18fe8 000000001fb3e000 000000001fb1adc0 000000001fb1cf40 GPR28: 000000001fb26000 000000001fb460f0 000000001fb17f18 000000001fb17000 NIP [000000001fb41050] 0x1fb41050 LR [000000001fb4104c] 0x1fb4104c Call Trace: Instruction dump: XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX ---[ end trace 3ddec07f638c34a2 ]---

This happens because MSR[RI] is unset when entering RTAS but there is no valid reason to not set it here.

RTAS is expected to be called with MSR[RI] as specified in PAPR+ section "7.2.1 Machine State":

R1–7.2.1–9. If called with MSR[RI] equal to 1, then RTAS must protect its own critical regions from recursion by setting the MSR[RI] bit to 0 when in the critical regions.

Fixing this by reviewing the way MSR is compute before calling RTAS. Now a hardcoded value meaning real ---truncated---

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.15.46, 5.17.14, 5.18.3, 5.19
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.18.5-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49440

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-47.51
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1019.23
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1017.23
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1015.18
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1013.15
  • linux-kvm Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1017.21
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1019.24
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1002.4

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49440

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel RHEL 9 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1
  • perf RHEL 9 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1
  • bpftool RHEL 9 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1
  • kernel-core RHEL 9 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1
  • kernel-tools RHEL 9 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1
  • python3-perf RHEL 9 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1
  • kernel-modules RHEL 9 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1
  • kernel-zfcpdump RHEL 9 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1

red hat advisories RHSA-2022:8267RHSA-2023:0512

  • kernel-64kb SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS 5.14.21-150500.55.100.1
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150500.55.100.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.5 +2 more 5.14.21-150500.55.100.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.5 +3 more 5.14.21-150500.55.100.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150500.55.100.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.5 +2 more 5.14.21-150500.55.100.1.150500.6.47.1
  • kernel-rt SLE Micro 5.4, SLE Micro 5.3 5.14.21-150400.15.115.1
  • kernel-source-rt SLE Micro 5.4, SLE Micro 5.3 5.14.21-150400.15.115.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:1241-1SUSE-SU-2025:1183-1SUSE-SU-2025:1176-1SUSE-SU-2025:1027-1

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-2022-49440 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: powerpc/rtas: Keep MSR[RI] set when calling RTAS

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat CodeReady Linux Builder (v. 9) kernel-debuginfo-common-s390x 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-debuginfo-common-aarch64 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-debuginfo-common-ppc64le 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2022:8267
  • Red Hat CodeReady Linux Builder EUS (v.9.0) kernel-debuginfo-common-s390x 5.14.0-70.43.1.el9_0, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 5.14.0-70.43.1.el9_0, kernel-debuginfo-common-aarch64 5.14.0-70.43.1.el9_0, kernel-debuginfo-common-ppc64le 5.14.0-70.43.1.el9_0
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:0512
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) perf 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-devel-matched 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-debug-devel-matched 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-debuginfo-common-s390x 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-zfcpdump-devel-matched 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, +2 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2022:8267
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream EUS (v.9.0) perf 5.14.0-70.43.1.el9_0, kernel-devel-matched 5.14.0-70.43.1.el9_0, kernel-debug-devel-matched 5.14.0-70.43.1.el9_0, kernel-debuginfo-common-s390x 5.14.0-70.43.1.el9_0, kernel-zfcpdump-devel-matched 5.14.0-70.43.1.el9_0, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 5.14.0-70.43.1.el9_0, +2 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:0512
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 9) kernel 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, bpftool 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-core 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-tools 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, python3-perf 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-modules 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, +14 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2022:8267
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS EUS (v.9.0) kernel 5.14.0-70.43.1.el9_0, bpftool 5.14.0-70.43.1.el9_0, kernel-core 5.14.0-70.43.1.el9_0, kernel-tools 5.14.0-70.43.1.el9_0, python3-perf 5.14.0-70.43.1.el9_0, kernel-modules 5.14.0-70.43.1.el9_0, +14 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:0512
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 kernel-rt, kernel-rt-kvm, kernel-rt-core, kernel-rt-modules, kernel-rt-debug-kvm, kernel-rt-debug-core, +12 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    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

Exploit prediction

0.26% 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
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/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.