CVE-2026-72212

mm/memory_hotplug: fix incorrect altmap passing in error path

State
Published
Severity
Not scored
Published
Aug 15, 2026
Updated
Aug 17, 2026
Reserved
Aug 9, 2026

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Description

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

mm/memory_hotplug: fix incorrect altmap passing in error path

In create_altmaps_and_memory_blocks(), when arch_add_memory() succeeds with memmap_on_memory enabled, the vmemmap pages are allocated from params.altmap. If create_memory_block_devices() subsequently fails, the error path calls arch_remove_memory() with a NULL altmap instead of params.altmap.

This is a bug that could lead to memory corruption. Since altmap is NULL, vmemmap_free() falls back to freeing the vmemmap pages into the system buddy allocator via free_pages() instead of the altmap. arch_remove_memory() then immediately destroys the physical linear mapping for this memory. This injects unowned pages into the buddy allocator, causing machine checks or memory corruption if the system later attempts to allocate and use those freed pages.

Fix this by passing params.altmap to arch_remove_memory() in the error path.

Scores

The record has no CVSS score.

Weaknesses

The record names no weakness.

Affected Products

ProductVersions
LinuxLinux
  • 6b8f0798b85aa529011570369db985a788f3003f to before 3833e6abdbbfb59ec8203a84a84206cb7ffb41acAffected
  • 6b8f0798b85aa529011570369db985a788f3003f to before 722e6c54bde6391fb95f0357f555aca887c7b18cAffected
  • 6b8f0798b85aa529011570369db985a788f3003f to before 2f9e3ec17c3d2093c664c00a027588a446c39894Affected
  • 6b8f0798b85aa529011570369db985a788f3003f to before 2fac4afa0e2e68841334c78c1821e49f74fbc66aAffected
LinuxLinux
  • 6.8Affected
  • before 6.8Not affected
  • 6.12.97 through 6.12.*Not affected
  • 6.18.40 through 6.18.*Not affected
  • 7.1.5 through 7.1.*Not affected
  • 7.2 and laterNot affected

References

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