CVE-2023-53178
mm: fix zswap writeback race condition
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm: fix zswap writeback race condition The zswap writeback mechanism can cause a race condition resulting in memory corruption, where a swapped out page gets swapped in with data that was written to a different page. The race unfolds like this: 1. a page with data A and swap offset X is stored in zswap 2. page A is removed off the LRU by zpool driver for writeback in zswap-shrink work, data for A is mapped by zpool driver 3. user space program faults and invalidates page entry A, offset X is considered free 4. kswapd stores page B at offset X in zswap (zswap could also be full, if so, page B would then be IOed to X, then skip step 5.) 5. entry A is replaced by B in tree->rbroot, this doesn't affect the local reference held by zswap-shrink work 6. zswap-shrink work writes back A at X, and frees zswap entry A 7. swapin of slot X brings A in memory instead of B The fix: Once the swap page cache has been allocated (case ZSWAP_SWAPCACHE_NEW), zswap-shrink work just checks that the local zswap_entry reference is still the same as the one in the tree. If it's not the same it means that it's either been invalidated or replaced, in both cases the writeback is aborted because the local entry contains stale data. Reproducer: I originally found this by running `stress` overnight to validate my work on the zswap writeback mechanism, it manifested after hours on my test machine. The key to make it happen is having zswap writebacks, so whatever setup pumps /sys/kernel/debug/zswap/written_back_pages should do the trick. In order to reproduce this faster on a vm, I setup a system with ~100M of available memory and a 500M swap file, then running `stress --vm 1 --vm-bytes 300000000 --vm-stride 4000` makes it happen in matter of tens of minutes. One can speed things up even more by swinging /sys/module/zswap/parameters/max_pool_percent up and down between, say, 20 and 1; this makes it reproduce in tens of seconds. It's crucial to set `--vm-stride` to something other than 4096 otherwise `stress` won't realize that memory has been corrupted because all pages would have the same data.
INFO
Published Date :
Sept. 15, 2025, 2:15 p.m.
Last Modified :
Sept. 15, 2025, 3:22 p.m.
Remotely Exploit :
No
Source :
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
Solution
- Update the Linux kernel to the latest version.
- Apply the specific patch for the zswap writeback race condition.
- Verify the integrity of memory after applying the fix.
- Test system stability under heavy memory load.
References to Advisories, Solutions, and Tools
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CVE-2023-53178.
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While CVE identifies
specific instances of vulnerabilities, CWE categorizes the common flaws or
weaknesses that can lead to vulnerabilities. CVE-2023-53178 is
associated with the following CWEs:
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification
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stores attack patterns, which are descriptions of the common attributes and
approaches employed by adversaries to exploit the CVE-2023-53178
weaknesses.
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Vulnerability history details can be useful for understanding the evolution of a vulnerability, and for identifying the most recent changes that may impact the vulnerability's severity, exploitability, or other characteristics.
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New CVE Received by 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
Sep. 15, 2025
Action Type Old Value New Value Added Description In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm: fix zswap writeback race condition The zswap writeback mechanism can cause a race condition resulting in memory corruption, where a swapped out page gets swapped in with data that was written to a different page. The race unfolds like this: 1. a page with data A and swap offset X is stored in zswap 2. page A is removed off the LRU by zpool driver for writeback in zswap-shrink work, data for A is mapped by zpool driver 3. user space program faults and invalidates page entry A, offset X is considered free 4. kswapd stores page B at offset X in zswap (zswap could also be full, if so, page B would then be IOed to X, then skip step 5.) 5. entry A is replaced by B in tree->rbroot, this doesn't affect the local reference held by zswap-shrink work 6. zswap-shrink work writes back A at X, and frees zswap entry A 7. swapin of slot X brings A in memory instead of B The fix: Once the swap page cache has been allocated (case ZSWAP_SWAPCACHE_NEW), zswap-shrink work just checks that the local zswap_entry reference is still the same as the one in the tree. If it's not the same it means that it's either been invalidated or replaced, in both cases the writeback is aborted because the local entry contains stale data. Reproducer: I originally found this by running `stress` overnight to validate my work on the zswap writeback mechanism, it manifested after hours on my test machine. The key to make it happen is having zswap writebacks, so whatever setup pumps /sys/kernel/debug/zswap/written_back_pages should do the trick. In order to reproduce this faster on a vm, I setup a system with ~100M of available memory and a 500M swap file, then running `stress --vm 1 --vm-bytes 300000000 --vm-stride 4000` makes it happen in matter of tens of minutes. One can speed things up even more by swinging /sys/module/zswap/parameters/max_pool_percent up and down between, say, 20 and 1; this makes it reproduce in tens of seconds. It's crucial to set `--vm-stride` to something other than 4096 otherwise `stress` won't realize that memory has been corrupted because all pages would have the same data. Added Reference https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/04fc7816089c5a32c29a04ec94b998e219dfb946 Added Reference https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2cab13f500a6333bd2b853783ac76be9e4956f8a Added Reference https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ba700ea13bf0105a4773c654f7d3bef8adb64ab2