🛡️ CVE-2026-43404 — kernel

🟡 CVSS 5.5 — Medium ✅ No Known Exploit NVD
5.5
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

mm: Fix a hmm_range_fault() livelock / starvation problem

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

mm: Fix a hmm_range_fault() livelock / starvation problem

If hmm_range_fault() fails a folio_trylock() in do_swap_page,

trying to acquire the lock of a device-private folio for migration,

to ram, the function will spin until it succeeds grabbing the lock.

However, if the process holding the lock is depending on a work

item to be completed, which is scheduled on the same CPU as the

spinning hmm_range_fault(), that work item might be starved and

we end up in a livelock / starvation situation which is never

resolved.

This can happen, for example if the process holding the

device-private folio lock is stuck in

migrate_device_unmap()->lru_add_drain_all()

sinc lru_add_drain_all() requires a short work-item

to be run on all online cpus to complete.

A prerequisite for this to happen is:

a) Both zone device and system memory folios are considered in

migrate_device_unmap(), so that there is a reason to call

lru_add_drain_all() for a system memory folio while a

folio lock is held on a zone device folio.

b) The zone device folio has an initial mapcount > 1 which causes

at least one migration PTE entry insertion to be deferred to

try_to_migrate(), which can happen after the call to

lru_add_drain_all().

c) No or voluntary only preemption.

This all seems pretty unlikely to happen, but indeed is hit by

the "xe_exec_system_allocator" igt test.

Resolve this by waiting for the folio to be unlocked if the

folio_trylock() fails in do_swap_page().

Rename migration_entry_wait_on_locked() to

softleaf_entry_wait_unlock() and update its documentation to

indicate the new use-case.

Future code improvements might consider moving

the lru_add_drain_all() call in migrate_device_unmap() to be

called *after* all pages have migration entries inserted.

That would eliminate also b) above.

v2:

  • Instead of a cond_resched() in hmm_range_fault(),

eliminate the problem by waiting for the folio to be unlocked

in do_swap_page() (Alistair Popple, Andrew Morton)

v3:

  • Add a stub migration_entry_wait_on_locked() for the

!CONFIG_MIGRATION case. (Kernel Test Robot)

v4:

  • Rename migrate_entry_wait_on_locked() to

softleaf_entry_wait_on_locked() and update docs (Alistair Popple)

v5:

  • Add a WARN_ON_ONCE() for the !CONFIG_MIGRATION

version of softleaf_entry_wait_on_locked().

  • Modify wording around function names in the commit message

(Andrew Morton)

(cherry picked from commit a69d1ab971a624c6f112cea61536569d579c3215)

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 none, integrity none, availability high.

Affected software

CVE-2026-43404 is recorded against 3 packages.

  • kernel (from 6.19.0 up to 6.19.9)
  • linux-kernel
  • unknown

Timeline and source

Published on 8 May 2026 and last revised on 15 July 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)
github.com (Advisory)
nvd.nist.gov (Advisory)
git.kernel.org (Package)

CVE-2026-43404 on other distributions

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

Details

Severity Medium
CVSS Score 5.5
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE N/A
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source NVD
Published 2026-05-08
Updated 2026-08-12
Modified 2026-07-15

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
kernel 6.19.0 6.19.9
linux-kernel
unknown

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