KernelScan.io

HIGH

mm shmem Swap Race

CVE-2026-23161

CVSS 7.3 / 10.0 NVD

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:H

KernelScan AI7.3HIGH

01

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/shmem, swap: fix race of truncate and swap entry split The helper for shmem swap freeing is not handling the order of swap entries correctly. It uses xa_cmpxchg_irq to erase the swap entry, but it gets the entry order before that using xa_get_order without lock protection, and it may get an outdated order value if the entry is split or changed in other ways after the xa_get_order and before the xa_cmpxchg_irq. And besides, the order could grow and be larger than expected, and cause truncation to erase data beyond the end border. For example, if the target entry and following entries are swapped in or freed, then a large folio was added in place and swapped out, using the same entry, the xa_cmpxchg_irq will still succeed, it's very unlikely to happen though. To fix that, open code the Xarray cmpxchg and put the order retrieval and value checking in the same critical section. Also, ensure the order won't exceed the end border, skip it if the entry goes across the border. Skipping large swap entries crosses the end border is safe here. Shmem truncate iterates the range twice, in the first iteration, find_lock_entries already filtered such entries, and shmem will swapin the entries that cross the end border and partially truncate the folio (split the folio or at least zero part of it). So in the second loop here, if we see a swap entry that crosses the end order, it must at least have its content erased already. I observed random swapoff hangs and kernel panics when stress testing ZSWAP with shmem. After applying this patch, all problems are gone.

02

Engine v0.2.0

Risk summary

A race condition in shmem swap entry handling can cause memory corruption during truncation operations. When multiple threads access swap entries concurrently, the kernel may use stale size information, potentially erasing data beyond intended boundaries. This can lead to system hangs, kernel panics, or data corruption, particularly under memory pressure with ZSWAP enabled.

Affectedmm/shmem.c

Vulnerability analysis

Root Cause: The shmem_free_swap() function has a race condition where it retrieves the swap entry order using xa_get_order() without lock protection, then later uses xa_cmpxchg_irq() to erase the entry. Between these two operations, the entry can be split or modified by other threads, leading to an outdated order value. This can cause truncation to erase data beyond intended boundaries if the order grows larger than expected.

Attack Surface: This is a local vulnerability affecting memory management operations. It requires the ability to trigger shmem operations with large folios and swap operations, typically requiring local access to the system. The race condition occurs during memory reclaim and swap operations, which are kernel-internal processes.

Fix Mechanism: The patch fixes the race by open-coding the Xarray operations and placing both order retrieval and value checking within the same critical section protected by xas_lock_irq(). It also adds boundary checking to ensure the order doesn't exceed the end border, skipping entries that cross the boundary. The fix uses XA_STATE and xas_* functions to perform atomic operations on the xarray.

03

BranchFixed inPatch commit
6.126.12.69a99f9a4669a0
6.186.18.9b23bee8cdb7a
mainline6.198a1968bd997f