CVE-2026-63807

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

State
Published
Severity
8.8 High
Published
Jul 19, 2026
Updated
Oct 19, 2026
Reserved
Jul 19, 2026

Read the record on cve.org

Description

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.

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
3.18.8 HighCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:HLinux

Weaknesses

Affected Products

ProductVersions
LinuxLinux
  • 9eba50f8d7fcb61774f160890f98239fa3ab68a6 to before 7b52008023b7facf40fba3ebe92449bda8ea53b9Affected
  • 9eba50f8d7fcb61774f160890f98239fa3ab68a6 to before 5cab1c989f938f5e1b9a0de66486f1fc2c28479bAffected
  • 9eba50f8d7fcb61774f160890f98239fa3ab68a6 to before 48b91ed7e22bb82571c34f8b80b6ecdc90a6fab8Affected
  • 9eba50f8d7fcb61774f160890f98239fa3ab68a6 to before c5c29b3c268332afe67d598a034c58344540ed92Affected
  • 9eba50f8d7fcb61774f160890f98239fa3ab68a6 to before 18587f9831612e24cd8f24be1ec15478feff7abcAffected
  • 9eba50f8d7fcb61774f160890f98239fa3ab68a6 to before b2ae3245ea44dccaa9af676b6747476951883318Affected
  • 9eba50f8d7fcb61774f160890f98239fa3ab68a6 to before ef057cbf825e03b63f6edf5980f96abf3c53089dAffected
LinuxLinux
  • 5.12Affected
  • before 5.12Not affected
  • 5.15.211 through 5.15.*Not affected
  • 6.1.177 through 6.1.*Not affected
  • 6.6.144 through 6.6.*Not affected
  • 6.12.95 through 6.12.*Not affected
  • 6.18.38 through 6.18.*Not affected
  • 7.1.3 through 7.1.*Not affected
  • 7.2 and laterNot affected

References

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