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[rlc-9/5.14.0-687.17.1.el9_8] Multiple patches tested (2 commits)#1405

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Jul 6, 2026
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[rlc-9/5.14.0-687.17.1.el9_8] Multiple patches tested (2 commits)#1405
PlaidCat merged 2 commits into
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{shreeya_januscape}_rlc-9/5.14.0-687.17.1.el9_8

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Summary

This PR has been automatically created after successful completion of all CI stages.

Commit Message(s)

KVM: x86: Fix shadow paging use-after-free due to unexpected GFN

cve CVE-2026-46113
commit-author Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
commit 0cb2af2ea66ad8ff195c156ea690f11216285bdf
KVM: x86: Fix shadow paging use-after-free due to unexpected role

cve CVE-2026-53359
commit-author Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
commit 81ccda30b4e83d8f5cc4fd50503c44e3a33abfeb

Reproducing and testing Januscape

Prerequisites

  1. A bare-metal host running RLC 9 without the two fixes (GFN + role).
  2. A guest VM (also RLC 9, or any kernel, the guest kernel is not what matters).
  3. Nested virtualization enabled on the host (kvm_intel nested=1), and the guest CPU set to host-passthrough so it can run the PoC's nested VMX/EPT workload.

Steps (inside the guest)

  1. Copy poc.c and Makefile into the guest.
  2. Build the module:
    make
  3. Load it (unload the guest's kvm_intel first for a clean slate):
    sudo rmmod kvm_intel
    sudo insmod poc.ko
  4. The PoC pins CPU and races the host's page-fault handler. A single insmod does not always win the race - it may crash on the first run, or take several.
  5. If it doesn't crash, unload and retry:
    sudo rmmod poc
    sudo insmod poc.ko
  6. Repeat. On an unpatched host you should see a crash within ~10 runs (a fresh insmod re-primes the race window each time).

Expected result

The host panics with a KVM shadow-MMU rmap corruption, with a signature like:

gfn mismatch under direct page <A> (expected <B>, got <C>)
pte_list_remove: <ptr> 0->BUG          # el9 / 5.14: pte_list_remove, mmu.c:940
kernel BUG at arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c:940!
RIP: pte_list_remove+... [kvm]
Call Trace: kvm_mmu_page_fault → mmu_set_spte → ... [kvm]
Comm: CPU N/KVM

Verifying the fix

Install the patched kernel on the host, boot into it, and repeat the same PoC runs from the guest. With the fix applied the host survives all runs (no pte_list_remove)

Test Results

✅ Build Stage

Architecture Build Time Total Time
x86_64 34m 48s 35m 54s
aarch64 19m 6s 19m 58s

✅ Boot Verification

✅ Kernel Selftests

Architecture Passed Failed Compared Against Status
x86_64 206 49 rlc-9/5.14.0-687.17.1.el9_8 ⚠️ No baseline available
aarch64 152 51 rlc-9/5.14.0-687.17.1.el9_8 ⚠️ No baseline available

✅ LTP Results

Architecture Passed Failed Compared Against Status
x86_64 1456 81 rlc-9/5.14.0-687.17.1.el9_8 ⚠️ No baseline available
aarch64 1429 82 rlc-9/5.14.0-687.17.1.el9_8 ⚠️ No baseline available

🤖 This PR was automatically generated by GitHub Actions
Run ID: 28800286145

sean-jc and others added 2 commits July 6, 2026 14:45
cve CVE-2026-46113
commit-author Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
commit 0cb2af2

The shadow MMU computes GFNs for direct shadow pages using sp->gfn plus
the SPTE index. This assumption breaks for shadow paging if the guest
page tables are modified between VM entries (similar to commit
aad885e, "KVM: x86/mmu: Drop/zap existing present SPTE even
when creating an MMIO SPTE", 2026-03-27).  The flow is as follows:

- a PDE is installed for a 2MB mapping, and a page in that area is
  accessed.  KVM creates a kvm_mmu_page consisting of 512 4KB pages;
  the kvm_mmu_page is marked by FNAME(fetch) as direct-mapped because
  the guest's mapping is a huge page (and thus contiguous).

- the PDE mapping is changed from outside the guest.

- the guest accesses another page in the same 2MB area.  KVM installs
  a new leaf SPTE and rmap entry; the SPTE uses the "correct" GFN
  (i.e. based on the new mapping, as changed in the previous step) but
  that GFN is outside of the [sp->gfn, sp->gfn + 511] range; therefore
  the rmap entry cannot be found and removed when the kvm_mmu_page
  is zapped.

- the memslot that covers the first 2MB mapping is deleted, and the
  kvm_mmu_page for the now-invalid GPA is zapped.  However, rmap_remove()
  only looks at the [sp->gfn, sp->gfn + 511] range established in step 1,
  and fails to find the rmap entry that was recorded by step 3.

- any operation that causes an rmap walk for the same page accessed
  by step 3 then walks a stale rmap and dereferences a freed kvm_mmu_page.
  This includes dirty logging or MMU notifier invalidations (e.g., from
  MADV_DONTNEED).

The underlying issue is that KVM's walking of shadow PTEs assumes that
if a SPTE is present when KVM wants to install a non-leaf SPTE, then the
existing kvm_mmu_page must be for the correct gfn.  Because the only way
for the gfn to be wrong is if KVM messed up and failed to zap a SPTE...
which shouldn't happen, but *actually* only happens in response to a
guest write.

That bug dates back literally forever, as even the first version of KVM
assumes that the GFN matches and walks into the "wrong" shadow page.
However, that was only an imprecision until 2032a93 ("KVM: MMU:
Don't allocate gfns page for direct mmu pages") came along.

Fix it by checking for a target gfn mismatch and zapping the existing
SPTE.  That way the old SP and rmap entries are gone, KVM installs
the rmap in the right location, and everyone is happy.

Fixes: 2032a93 ("KVM: MMU: Don't allocate gfns page for direct mmu pages")
Fixes: 6aa8b73 ("kvm: userspace interface")
Reported-by: Alexander Bulekov <bkov@amazon.com>
Reported-by: Fred Griffoul <fgriffo@amazon.co.uk>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260503201029.106481-1-pbonzini@redhat.com/
Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
(cherry picked from commit 0cb2af2)
Signed-off-by: Shreeya Patel <spatel@ciq.com>
cve CVE-2026-53359
commit-author Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
commit 81ccda3

Commit 0cb2af2 ("KVM: x86: Fix shadow paging use-after-free due
to unexpected GFN") fixed a shadow paging mismatch between stored and
computed GFNs; the bug could be triggered by changing a PDE mapping from
outside the guest, and then deleting a memslot.  The rmap_remove()
call would miss entries created after the PDE change because the GFN
of the leaf SPTE does not match the GFN of the struct kvm_mmu_page.

A similar hole however remains if the modified PDE points to a non-leaf
page.  In this case the gfn can be made to match, but the role does not
match: the original large 2MB page creates a kvm_mmu_page with direct=1,
while the new 4KB needs a kvm_mmu_page with direct=0.  However,
kvm_mmu_get_child_sp() does not compare the role, and therefore reuses
the page.

The next step is installing a leaf (4KB) SPTE on the new path which
records an rmap entry under the gfn resolved by the walk.  But when
that child is zapped its parent kvm_mmu_page has direct=1 and
kvm_mmu_page_get_gfn() computes the gfn for the 4KB page as
sp->gfn + index instead of using sp->shadowed_translation[] (or sp->gfns[]
in older kernels).  It therefore fails to remove the recorded entry.

When the memslot is dropped the shadow page is freed but the rmap
entry survives, as in the scenario that was already fixed.  Code that
later walks that gfn (dirty logging, MMU notifier invalidation, and
so on) dereferences an sptep that lies in the freed page, causing the
use-after-free.

Fixes: 2032a93 ("KVM: MMU: Don't allocate gfns page for direct mmu pages")
Reported-by: Hyunwoo Kim <imv4bel@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
(cherry picked from commit 81ccda3)
Signed-off-by: Shreeya Patel <spatel@ciq.com>
@ciq-kernel-automation ciq-kernel-automation Bot added the created-by-kernelci Tag PRs that were automatically created when a user branch was pushed to the repo (kernelCI) label Jul 6, 2026
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🤖 Validation Checks In Progress Workflow run: https://github.com/ctrliq/kernel-src-tree/actions/runs/28815327149

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🔍 Interdiff Analysis

  • ⚠️ PR commit db25c218ba9 (KVM: x86: Fix shadow paging use-after-free due to unexpected GFN) → upstream 0cb2af2ea66a
    Differences found:
================================================================================
*    CONTEXT DIFFERENCES - surrounding code differences between the patches    *
================================================================================

--- b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c
@@ -179,4 +179,4 @@
-static struct percpu_counter kvm_total_used_mmu_pages;
+struct kmem_cache *mmu_page_header_cache;
 
 static void mmu_spte_set(u64 *sptep, u64 spte);

This is an automated interdiff check for backported commits.

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Validation checks completed successfully View full results: https://github.com/ctrliq/kernel-src-tree/actions/runs/28815327149

@PlaidCat PlaidCat requested a review from a team July 6, 2026 19:44

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:shipit:

@bmastbergen bmastbergen self-requested a review July 6, 2026 20:34

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🥌

@PlaidCat PlaidCat merged commit f17154e into rlc-9/5.14.0-687.17.1.el9_8 Jul 6, 2026
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