CVE-2026-80893: mm/hugetlb: fix swap entry corruption when clearing uffd-wp at fork()
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
mm/hugetlb: fix swap entry corruption when clearing uffd-wp at fork()
copyhugetlbpagerange() clears the uffd-wp bit of migration and hwpoison entries with hugepteclearuffdwp(), which operates on the present-PTE bit position. Swap entries keep the uffd-wp state elsewhere -- the migration branch reads and sets it with pteswpuffdwp() and pteswpmkuffdwp() -- and the present-PTE position falls into the swap payload. On x86-64 it lands in the inverted swap offset, where a naturally-aligned hugetlb PFN always has the affected bit set, so the clear advances the encoded PFN by two pages.
No userfaultfd needs to be involved: the clear is guarded only by the child VMA not being uffd-wp registered, so a plain fork() with an in-flight hugetlb migration entry (or a poisoned hugetlb page) corrupts the entry copied into the child. Instrumenting the clear and forking after MADVHWPOISON on a 2MB anon hugetlb page shows:
offset before=120e00 offset after =120e02
The fallout is mostly latent: rmap walks match migration entries by folio range and removemigrationpte() rebuilds the PTE from the folio, so a within-folio PFN skew heals once migration completes. But any path that re-encodes the corrupted offset -- e.g. hugetlbchangeprotection() rewriting a writable migration entry via makereadablemigrationentry(swpoffset(entry)) -- propagates it.
Migration entries legitimately carry uffd-wp, so clear it with pteswpclearuffdwp(), matching copynonpresentpte() and movehugepte().
A hwpoison entry, on the other hand, never carries the uffd-wp bit: it is installed fresh by makehwpoisonentry() (trytounmapone() does not preserve uffd-wp on the hwpoison path) and hugetlbchangeprotection() leaves hwpoison entries untouched. There was nothing to clear there, only the corruption, so drop the clear entirely.
Affected Software
Remediation
Recommended actions to resolve this vulnerability, in priority order.
- Upgrade
Upgrade
Linux kernelto a version that resolves this vulnerability.Patch mm/hugetlb: fix swap entry corruption when clearing uffd-wp at fork()
Event History
Frequently Asked Questions
Is userfaultfd use required for exploitation?
No. A plain fork() can trigger the issue when a hugetlb migration entry is in flight or a hugetlb page is poisoned, provided the child VMA is not registered for uffd-wp.
Which workloads are realistically exposed?
Workloads using hugetlb-backed memory and forking while a hugetlb page is migrating or has been hardware-poisoned are exposed. The corrupted entry is copied into the child process.
What corruption has been observed on x86-64?
Clearing the wrong bit can alter the encoded swap offset. For a naturally aligned hugetlb PFN, the described effect advances the encoded PFN by two pages; an example changed the offset from 120e00 to 120e02.