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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2022-50177 json

rcutorture: Fix ksoftirqd boosting timing and iteration

published 2025-06-18 16 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2022-55442

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 15%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

rcutorture: Fix ksoftirqd boosting timing and iteration

The RCU priority boosting can fail in two situations:

1) If (nr_cpus= > maxcpus=), which means if the total number of CPUs is higher than those brought online at boot, then torture_onoff() may later bring up CPUs that weren't online on boot. Now since rcutorture initialization only boosts the ksoftirqds of the CPUs that have been set online on boot, the CPUs later set online by torture_onoff won't benefit from the boost, making RCU priority boosting fail.

2) The ksoftirqd kthreads are boosted after the creation of rcu_torture_boost() kthreads, which opens a window large enough for these rcu_torture_boost() kthreads to wait (despite running at FIFO priority) for ksoftirqds that are still running at SCHED_NORMAL priority.

The issues can trigger for example with:

./kvm.sh --configs TREE01 --kconfig "CONFIG_RCU_BOOST=y"

[ 34.968561] rcu-torture: !!! [ 34.968627] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [ 35.014054] WARNING: CPU: 4 PID: 114 at kernel/rcu/rcutorture.c:1979 rcu_torture_stats_print+0x5ad/0x610 [ 35.052043] Modules linked in: [ 35.069138] CPU: 4 PID: 114 Comm: rcu_torture_sta Not tainted 5.18.0-rc1 #1 [ 35.096424] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS rel-1.14.0-0-g155821a-rebuilt.opensuse.org 04/01/2014 [ 35.154570] RIP: 0010:rcu_torture_stats_print+0x5ad/0x610 [ 35.198527] Code: 63 1b 02 00 74 02 0f 0b 48 83 3d 35 63 1b 02 00 74 02 0f 0b 48 83 3d 21 63 1b 02 00 74 02 0f 0b 48 83 3d 0d 63 1b 02 00 74 02 <0f> 0b 83 eb 01 0f 8e ba fc ff ff 0f 0b e9 b3 fc ff f82 [ 37.251049] RSP: 0000:ffffa92a0050bdf8 EFLAGS: 00010202 [ 37.277320] rcu: De-offloading 8 [ 37.290367] RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 0000000000000001 RCX: 0000000000000001 [ 37.290387] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 00000000ffffbfff RDI: 00000000ffffffff [ 37.290398] RBP: 000000000000007b R08: 0000000000000000 R09: c0000000ffffbfff [ 37.290407] R10: 000000000000002a R11: ffffa92a0050bc18 R12: ffffa92a0050be20 [ 37.290417] R13: ffffa92a0050be78 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: 000000000001bea0 [ 37.290427] FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff96045eb00000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 37.290448] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 37.290460] CR2: 0000000000000000 CR3: 000000001dc0c000 CR4: 00000000000006e0 [ 37.290470] Call Trace: [ 37.295049] <TASK> [ 37.295065] ? preempt_count_add+0x63/0x90 [ 37.295095] ? _raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0x12/0x40 [ 37.295125] ? rcu_torture_stats_print+0x610/0x610 [ 37.295143] rcu_torture_stats+0x29/0x70 [ 37.295160] kthread+0xe3/0x110 [ 37.295176] ? kthread_complete_and_exit+0x20/0x20 [ 37.295193] ret_from_fork+0x22/0x30 [ 37.295218] </TASK>

Fix this with boosting the ksoftirqds kthreads from the boosting hotplug callback itself and before the boosting kthreads are created.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.15.61, 5.18.18, 5.19.2, 6.0
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 6.0.2-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50177

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-53.59
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1023.27
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1022.29
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1020.25
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1018.21
  • linux-kvm Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1021.26
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1023.29
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1008.12

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2022-50177

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 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5
  • rv RHEL 9 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5
  • perf RHEL 9 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5
  • rtla RHEL 9 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5
  • bpftool RHEL 9 7.4.0-503.11.1.el9_5
  • libperf RHEL 9 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5
  • kernel-rt RHEL 9 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5
  • kernel-64k RHEL 9 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5

red hat advisories RHSA-2024:9315RHSA-2022:7683

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-2022-50177 updated cvss 7.0

kernel: rcutorture: Fix ksoftirqd boosting timing and iteration

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 kernel-rt, kernel-rt-kvm, kernel-rt-core, kernel-rt-modules, kernel-rt-debug-kvm, kernel-rt-debug-core, +6 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
    affected: no fix available
  • Red Hat CodeReady Linux Builder (v. 8) kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 4.18.0-425.3.1.el8, kernel-debuginfo-common-aarch64 4.18.0-425.3.1.el8, kernel-debuginfo-common-ppc64le 4.18.0-425.3.1.el8
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2022:7683
  • Red Hat CodeReady Linux Builder (v. 9) libperf 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-debuginfo-common-s390x 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-debuginfo-common-aarch64 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-debuginfo-common-ppc64le 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5 Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) rv 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, perf 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, rtla 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-devel-matched 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-64k-devel-matched 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-debug-devel-matched 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, +6 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2024:9315
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 8) perf 4.18.0-425.3.1.el8, kernel 4.18.0-425.3.1.el8, bpftool 4.18.0-425.3.1.el8, kernel-core 4.18.0-425.3.1.el8, kernel-tools 4.18.0-425.3.1.el8, python3-perf 4.18.0-425.3.1.el8, +15 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2022:7683
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 9) bpftool 7.4.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-64k 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-core 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-tools 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, python3-perf 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux Real Time (v. 9) kernel-rt 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-core 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-modules 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-debug-core 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-modules-core 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-debug-modules 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, +4 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux Real Time for NFV (v. 9) kernel-rt 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-kvm 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-core 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-modules 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-debug-kvm 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-debug-core 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, +6 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2024:9315
  • Red Hat CodeReady Linux Builder (v. 9) kernel-cross-headers 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5 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 10 kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) kernel-headers 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5
    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

0.24% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 15% 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.