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🛡️ CVE-2023-52474 — kernel

🟠 CVSS 7.8 — High ✅ No Known Exploit NVD
7.8
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

IB/hfi1: Fix bugs with non-PAGE_SIZE-end multi-iovec user SDMA requests

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

IB/hfi1: Fix bugs with non-PAGE_SIZE-end multi-iovec user SDMA requests

hfi1 user SDMA request processing has two bugs that can cause data

corruption for user SDMA requests that have multiple payload iovecs

where an iovec other than the tail iovec does not run up to the page

boundary for the buffer pointed to by that iovec.a

Here are the specific bugs:

1. user_sdma_txadd() does not use struct user_sdma_iovec->iov.iov_len.

Rather, user_sdma_txadd() will add up to PAGE_SIZE bytes from iovec

to the packet, even if some of those bytes are past

iovec->iov.iov_len and are thus not intended to be in the packet.

2. user_sdma_txadd() and user_sdma_send_pkts() fail to advance to the

next iovec in user_sdma_request->iovs when the current iovec

is not PAGE_SIZE and does not contain enough data to complete the

packet. The transmitted packet will contain the wrong data from the

iovec pages.

This has not been an issue with SDMA packets from hfi1 Verbs or PSM2

because they only produce iovecs that end short of PAGE_SIZE as the tail

iovec of an SDMA request.

Fixing these bugs exposes other bugs with the SDMA pin cache

(struct mmu_rb_handler) that get in way of supporting user SDMA requests

with multiple payload iovecs whose buffers do not end at PAGE_SIZE. So

this commit fixes those issues as well.

Here are the mmu_rb_handler bugs that non-PAGE_SIZE-end multi-iovec

payload user SDMA requests can hit:

1. Overlapping memory ranges in mmu_rb_handler will result in duplicate

pinnings.

2. When extending an existing mmu_rb_handler entry (struct mmu_rb_node),

the mmu_rb code (1) removes the existing entry under a lock, (2)

releases that lock, pins the new pages, (3) then reacquires the lock

to insert the extended mmu_rb_node.

If someone else comes in and inserts an overlapping entry between (2)

and (3), insert in (3) will fail.

The failure path code in this case unpins _all_ pages in either the

original mmu_rb_node or the new mmu_rb_node that was inserted between

(2) and (3).

3. In hfi1_mmu_rb_remove_unless_exact(), mmu_rb_node->refcount is

incremented outside of mmu_rb_handler->lock. As a result, mmu_rb_node

could be evicted by another thread that gets mmu_rb_handler->lock and

checks mmu_rb_node->refcount before mmu_rb_node->refcount is

incremented.

4. Related to #2 above, SDMA request submission failure path does not

check mmu_rb_node->refcount before freeing mmu_rb_node object.

If there are other SDMA requests in progress whose iovecs have

pointers to the now-freed mmu_rb_node(s), those pointers to the

now-freed mmu_rb nodes will be dereferenced when those SDMA requests

complete.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached with local access to the system, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs low-level privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality high, integrity high, availability high.

CVSS metrics in full

The score comes from this vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

  • Attack vector: Local — a local account, shell or session on the host is needed.
  • Attack complexity: Low — the attack works reliably, with no preparation.
  • Privileges required: Low — an ordinary user account is enough.
  • User interaction: None — nobody has to be tricked into anything.
  • Scope: Unchanged — the damage stays inside the vulnerable component.
  • Confidentiality impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.
  • Integrity impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.
  • Availability impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.

Affected software

CVE-2023-52474 is recorded against 2 packages.

  • kernel (from 6.3.0 up to 6.3.2)
  • linux-kernel (from 6.3.0 up to 6.3.2)

Timeline and source

Published on 26 February 2024 and last revised on 12 August 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. A vendor advisory or fix has been published. Record sourced from NVD.

References

git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
github.com (Advisory)
nvd.nist.gov (Advisory)
git.kernel.org (Package)

Other advisories for this package

kernel has other advisories on record. If you are patching this one, these are worth checking on the same host:

CVE-2023-52474 on other distributions

Each distribution ships its own build and its own fixed version. Pick the one you run:

Details

Severity High
CVSS Score 7.8
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CWE N/A
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source NVD
Published 2024-02-26
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2026-08-12

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
kernel 6.3.0 6.3.2
linux-kernel 6.3.0 6.3.2

Similar Threats

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