CVE-2021-46990

powerpc/64s: Fix crashes when toggling entry flush barrier

State
Published
Severity
Not scored
Published
Feb 28, 2024
Updated
May 23, 2026
Reserved
Feb 27, 2024

Read the record on cve.org

Description

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

powerpc/64s: Fix crashes when toggling entry flush barrier

The entry flush mitigation can be enabled/disabled at runtime via a debugfs file (entry_flush), which causes the kernel to patch itself to enable/disable the relevant mitigations.

However depending on which mitigation we're using, it may not be safe to do that patching while other CPUs are active. For example the following crash:

sleeper[15639]: segfault (11) at c000000000004c20 nip c000000000004c20 lr c000000000004c20

Shows that we returned to userspace with a corrupted LR that points into the kernel, due to executing the partially patched call to the fallback entry flush (ie. we missed the LR restore).

Fix it by doing the patching under stop machine. The CPUs that aren't doing the patching will be spinning in the core of the stop machine logic. That is currently sufficient for our purposes, because none of the patching we do is to that code or anywhere in the vicinity.

Scores

The record has no CVSS score.

Weaknesses

The record names no weakness.

Affected Products

ProductVersions
LinuxLinux
  • 4a1e90af718d1489ffcecc8f52486c4f5dc0f7a6 to before 8382b15864e5014261b4f36c2aa89723612ee058Affected
  • fa4bf9f38184ed7ca4916eb64f8c767d1e279c1f to before 0c25a7bb697f2e6ee65b6d63782f675bf129511aAffected
  • db01cad9efe3c3838a6b3a3f68affd295c4b92d6 to before ee4b7aab93c2631c3bb0753023c5dda592bb666bAffected
  • f69bb4e51f41973fb7594be1479fa689831efe1a to before 2db22ba4e0e103f00e0512e0ecce36ac78c644f8Affected
  • b65458b6be8032c5179d4f562038575d7b3a6be3 to before 0b4eb172cc12dc102cd0ad013e53ee4463db9508Affected
  • f79643787e0a0762d2409b7b8334e83f22d85695 to before d2e3590ca39ccfd8a5a46d8c7f095cb6c7b9ae92Affected
  • f79643787e0a0762d2409b7b8334e83f22d85695 to before dd0d6117052faace5440db20fc37175efe921c7dAffected
  • f79643787e0a0762d2409b7b8334e83f22d85695 to before 5bc00fdda1e934c557351a9c751a205293e68cbfAffected
  • f79643787e0a0762d2409b7b8334e83f22d85695 to before aec86b052df6541cc97c5fca44e5934cbea4963bAffected
  • e590b36718d6e740b7b19514f710402a6499164cAffected
  • 4.4.245 to before 4.4.269Affected
  • 4.9.245 to before 4.9.269Affected
  • 4.14.208 to before 4.14.233Affected
  • 4.19.159 to before 4.19.191Affected
  • 5.4.79 to before 5.4.120Affected
  • 5.9.10 to before 5.10Affected
LinuxLinux
  • 5.10Affected
  • before 5.10Not affected
  • 4.4.269 through 4.4.*Not affected
  • 4.9.269 through 4.9.*Not affected
  • 4.14.233 through 4.14.*Not affected
  • 4.19.191 through 4.19.*Not affected
  • 5.4.120 through 5.4.*Not affected
  • 5.10.38 through 5.10.*Not affected
  • 5.11.22 through 5.11.*Not affected
  • 5.12.5 through 5.12.*Not affected
  • 5.13 and laterNot affected

References

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