CVE-2024-36936

efi/unaccepted: touch soft lockup during memory accept

Published May 30, 2024 CVSS 3.1 · 5.5 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

efi/unaccepted: touch soft lockup during memory accept

Commit 50e782a86c98 ("efi/unaccepted: Fix soft lockups caused by
parallel memory acceptance") has released the spinlock so other CPUs can
do memory acceptance in parallel and not triggers softlockup on other
CPUs.

However the softlock up was intermittent shown up if the memory of the
TD guest is large, and the timeout of softlockup is set to 1 second:

RIP: 0010:_raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore
Call Trace:
? __hrtimer_run_queues
<IRQ>
? hrtimer_interrupt
? watchdog_timer_fn
? __sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt
? __pfx_watchdog_timer_fn
? sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt
</IRQ>
? __hrtimer_run_queues
<TASK>
? hrtimer_interrupt
? asm_sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt
? _raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore
? __sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt
? sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt
accept_memory
try_to_accept_memory
do_huge_pmd_anonymous_page
get_page_from_freelist
__handle_mm_fault
__alloc_pages
__folio_alloc
? __tdx_hypercall
handle_mm_fault
vma_alloc_folio
do_user_addr_fault
do_huge_pmd_anonymous_page
exc_page_fault
? __do_huge_pmd_anonymous_page
asm_exc_page_fault
__handle_mm_fault

When the local irq is enabled at the end of accept_memory(), the
softlockup detects that the watchdog on single CPU has not been fed for
a while. That is to say, even other CPUs will not be blocked by
spinlock, the current CPU might be stunk with local irq disabled for a
while, which hurts not only nmi watchdog but also softlockup.

Chao Gao pointed out that the memory accept could be time costly and
there was similar report before. Thus to avoid any softlocup detection
during this stage, give the softlockup a flag to skip the timeout check
at the end of accept_memory(), by invoking touch_softlockup_watchdog().

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

Source ID Title
Ubuntu USN Ubuntu USN USN-6949-1 Linux kernel vulnerabilities
Ubuntu USN Ubuntu USN USN-6949-2 Linux kernel vulnerabilities
Ubuntu USN Ubuntu USN USN-6952-1 Linux kernel vulnerabilities
Ubuntu USN Ubuntu USN USN-6955-1 Linux kernel (OEM) vulnerabilities
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Linux
Linux linux Kernel
Weaknesses CWE-667
CPEs cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.6:-:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.6:rc7:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.9:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.9:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.9:rc3:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.9:rc4:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.9:rc5:*:*:*:*:*:*
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.9:rc6:*:*:*:*:*:*
Vendors & Products Linux
Linux linux Kernel
Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Redhat
Redhat enterprise Linux
CPEs cpe:/a:redhat:enterprise_linux:9
cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:9
Vendors & Products Redhat
Redhat enterprise Linux
Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
Linux
Published
Updated
May 23, 2026, 3:47 PM
Reserved
May 30, 2024, 3:25 PM
Status
Analyzed
Published
May 30, 2024, 4:15 PM
Modified
Jun 17, 2026, 7:37 AM
Severity
Moderate
Public date
May 30, 2024, 12:00 AM