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Unrated severityNVD Advisory· Published Mar 2, 2024· Updated May 4, 2025

x86/alternatives: Disable KASAN in apply_alternatives()

CVE-2023-52504

Description

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

x86/alternatives: Disable KASAN in apply_alternatives()

Fei has reported that KASAN triggers during apply_alternatives() on a 5-level paging machine:

BUG: KASAN: out-of-bounds in rcu_is_watching() Read of size 4 at addr ff110003ee6419a0 by task swapper/0/0 ... __asan_load4() rcu_is_watching() trace_hardirqs_on() text_poke_early() apply_alternatives() ...

On machines with 5-level paging, cpu_feature_enabled(X86_FEATURE_LA57) gets patched. It includes KASAN code, where KASAN_SHADOW_START depends on __VIRTUAL_MASK_SHIFT, which is defined with cpu_feature_enabled().

KASAN gets confused when apply_alternatives() patches the KASAN_SHADOW_START users. A test patch that makes KASAN_SHADOW_START static, by replacing __VIRTUAL_MASK_SHIFT with 56, works around the issue.

Fix it for real by disabling KASAN while the kernel is patching alternatives.

[ mingo: updated the changelog ]

Affected products

100

Patches

0

No patches discovered yet.

Vulnerability mechanics

AI mechanics synthesis has not run for this CVE yet.

References

7

News mentions

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