CVE-2025-38681
mm/ptdump: take the memory hotplug lock inside ptdump_walk_pgd()
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/ptdump: take the memory hotplug lock inside ptdump_walk_pgd() Memory hot remove unmaps and tears down various kernel page table regions as required. The ptdump code can race with concurrent modifications of the kernel page tables. When leaf entries are modified concurrently, the dump code may log stale or inconsistent information for a VA range, but this is otherwise not harmful. But when intermediate levels of kernel page table are freed, the dump code will continue to use memory that has been freed and potentially reallocated for another purpose. In such cases, the ptdump code may dereference bogus addresses, leading to a number of potential problems. To avoid the above mentioned race condition, platforms such as arm64, riscv and s390 take memory hotplug lock, while dumping kernel page table via the sysfs interface /sys/kernel/debug/kernel_page_tables. Similar race condition exists while checking for pages that might have been marked W+X via /sys/kernel/debug/kernel_page_tables/check_wx_pages which in turn calls ptdump_check_wx(). Instead of solving this race condition again, let's just move the memory hotplug lock inside generic ptdump_check_wx() which will benefit both the scenarios. Drop get_online_mems() and put_online_mems() combination from all existing platform ptdump code paths.
INFO
Published Date :
Sept. 4, 2025, 4:15 p.m.
Last Modified :
Sept. 5, 2025, 5:47 p.m.
Remotely Exploit :
No
Source :
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
Solution
- Update the Linux kernel to the latest stable version.
- Ensure memory hotplug lock is used in ptdump code.
- Remove redundant memory hotplug lock calls.
References to Advisories, Solutions, and Tools
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CVE-2025-38681.
CWE - Common Weakness Enumeration
While CVE identifies
specific instances of vulnerabilities, CWE categorizes the common flaws or
weaknesses that can lead to vulnerabilities. CVE-2025-38681 is
associated with the following CWEs:
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification
(CAPEC)
stores attack patterns, which are descriptions of the common attributes and
approaches employed by adversaries to exploit the CVE-2025-38681
weaknesses.
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New CVE Received by 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
Sep. 04, 2025
Action Type Old Value New Value Added Description In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/ptdump: take the memory hotplug lock inside ptdump_walk_pgd() Memory hot remove unmaps and tears down various kernel page table regions as required. The ptdump code can race with concurrent modifications of the kernel page tables. When leaf entries are modified concurrently, the dump code may log stale or inconsistent information for a VA range, but this is otherwise not harmful. But when intermediate levels of kernel page table are freed, the dump code will continue to use memory that has been freed and potentially reallocated for another purpose. In such cases, the ptdump code may dereference bogus addresses, leading to a number of potential problems. To avoid the above mentioned race condition, platforms such as arm64, riscv and s390 take memory hotplug lock, while dumping kernel page table via the sysfs interface /sys/kernel/debug/kernel_page_tables. Similar race condition exists while checking for pages that might have been marked W+X via /sys/kernel/debug/kernel_page_tables/check_wx_pages which in turn calls ptdump_check_wx(). Instead of solving this race condition again, let's just move the memory hotplug lock inside generic ptdump_check_wx() which will benefit both the scenarios. Drop get_online_mems() and put_online_mems() combination from all existing platform ptdump code paths. Added Reference https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1636b5e9c3543b87d673e32a47e7c18698882425 Added Reference https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3ee9a8c27bfd72c3f465004fa8455785d61be5e8 Added Reference https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/59305202c67fea50378dcad0cc199dbc13a0e99a Added Reference https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/67995d4244694928ce701928e530b5b4adeb17b4 Added Reference https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/69bea84b06b5e779627e7afdbf4b60a7d231c76f Added Reference https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ac25ec5fa2bf6e606dc7954488e4dded272fa9cd Added Reference https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ca8c414499f2e5337a95a76be0d21b728ee31c6b Added Reference https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ff40839e018b82c4d756d035f34a63aa2d93be83