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8.8

KVM: Guest Hugepage Mapping Can Cause Memory Access Error

published 3 months ago
Summary

The Linux kernel's KVM feature has a security issue that can cause a memory access error when a guest operating system uses a hugepage mapping that exceeds the bounds of a memory slot. This can lead to a host page fault, potentially causing a system crash. To mitigate this issue, ensure that your Linux kernel is up to date with the latest security patches.

What to do
  • Update linux kernel to version 7.1.3.
Affected software
Ecosystem VendorProductAffected versions
Linux linux kernel >= 6.19.0, < 7.1.3
Fix: upgrade to 7.1.3
Original advisory text
KVM: x86/mmu: Ensure hugepage is in by slot before checking max mapping level
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

KVM: x86/mmu: Ensure hugepage is in by slot before checking max mapping level

When recovering hugepages in the shadow MMU, verify that the base gfn of
the shadow page is actually contained within the target memslot, *before*
querying the max mapping level given the shadow page's gfn. Failure to
pre-check the validity of the gfn can lead to an out-of-bounds access to
the slot's lpage_info (which typically manifests as a host #PF because the
lpage_info is vmalloc'd) if the guest creates a hugepage mapping (in its
PTEs) that extends "below" the bounds of a memslot.

When faulting in memory for a guest, and the size of the guest mapping is
greater than KVM's (current) max mapping, then KVM will create a "direct"
shadow page (direct in that there are no gPTEs to shadow, and so the target
gfn is a direct calculation given the base gfn of the shadow page). The
hugepage recovery flow looks for such direct shadow pages, as forcing 4KiB
mappings when dirty logging generates the guest > host mapping size case.
When the 4KiB restriction is lifted, then KVM can replace the shadow page
with a hugepage.

But if KVM originally used a smaller mapping than the guest because the
range of memory covered by the guest hugepage exceeds the bounds of a
memslot, then KVM will link a direct shadow page with a gfn that is outside
the bounds of the memslot being used to fault in memory. The rmap entry
added for the leaf mapping is correct and within bounds, but the gfn of the
leaf SPTE's parent shadow page will be out of bounds.

BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ffffc90000806ffc
#PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode
#PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page
PGD 100000067 P4D 100000067 PUD 1002a7067 PMD 10612f067 PTE 0
Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP
CPU: 13 UID: 1000 PID: 757 Comm: mmu_stress_test Not tainted 7.1.0-rc1-48ce1e26eace-x86_pir_to_irr_comments-vm #341 PREEMPT
Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 0.0.0 02/06/2015
RIP: 0010:kvm_mmu_max_mapping_level+0x79/0x2b0 [kvm]
Call Trace:
<TASK>
kvm_mmu_recover_huge_pages+0x21b/0x320 [kvm]
kvm_set_memslot+0x1ee/0x590 [kvm]
kvm_set_memory_region.part.0+0x3a1/0x4d0 [kvm]
kvm_vm_ioctl+0x9bf/0x15d0 [kvm]
__x64_sys_ioctl+0x8a/0xd0
do_syscall_64+0xb7/0xbb0
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53
RIP: 0033:0x7f21c0f1a9bf
</TASK>

Don't bother pre-checking the bounds of the potential hugepage, i.e. don't
check that e.g. sp->gfn + KVM_PAGES_PER_HPAGE(sp->role.level + 1) is also
within the memslot, as the checks performed by kvm_mmu_max_mapping_level()
are a superset of the basic bounds checks. I.e. pre-checking the full
range would be a dubious micro-optimization.
Fix within
Internet-facing 14 days
Internal At next upgrade
  • Not known to be exploited
  • Needs hands-on effort to exploit (estimated)
  • Gives an attacker full control (estimated)
Severity
8.8 High
Timeline
Published19 Jul 2026
Updated23 Jul 2026
First seen23 Jul 2026
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