MEDIUM · 5.5

CVE-2026-23100

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/hugetlb: fix hugetlb_pmd_shared() Patch series "mm/hugetlb: fixes for PMD table sharing (incl. using mmu_gather)", v3. One fu...

Vulnerability Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/hugetlb: fix hugetlb_pmd_shared() Patch series "mm/hugetlb: fixes for PMD table sharing (incl. using mmu_gather)", v3. One functional fix, one performance regression fix, and two related comment fixes. I cleaned up my prototype I recently shared [1] for the performance fix, deferring most of the cleanups I had in the prototype to a later point. While doing that I identified the other things. The goal of this patch set is to be backported to stable trees "fairly" easily. At least patch #1 and #4. Patch #1 fixes hugetlb_pmd_shared() not detecting any sharing Patch #2 + #3 are simple comment fixes that patch #4 interacts with. Patch #4 is a fix for the reported performance regression due to excessive IPI broadcasts during fork()+exit(). The last patch is all about TLB flushes, IPIs and mmu_gather. Read: complicated There are plenty of cleanups in the future to be had + one reasonable optimization on x86. But that's all out of scope for this series. Runtime tested, with a focus on fixing the performance regression using the original reproducer [2] on x86. This patch (of 4): We switched from (wrongly) using the page count to an independent shared count. Now, shared page tables have a refcount of 1 (excluding speculative references) and instead use ptdesc->pt_share_count to identify sharing. We didn't convert hugetlb_pmd_shared(), so right now, we would never detect a shared PMD table as such, because sharing/unsharing no longer touches the refcount of a PMD table. Page migration, like mbind() or migrate_pages() would allow for migrating folios mapped into such shared PMD tables, even though the folios are not exclusive. In smaps we would account them as "private" although they are "shared", and we would be wrongly setting the PM_MMAP_EXCLUSIVE in the pagemap interface. Fix it by properly using ptdesc_pmd_is_shared() in hugetlb_pmd_shared().

CVSS Score

5.5

MEDIUM

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack Vector
LOCAL
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
LOW
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH

Affected Products

VendorProductVersions
LinuxLinux Kernel>= 5.10.239, < 5.11

References

FAQ

What is CVE-2026-23100?

CVE-2026-23100 is a vulnerability with a CVSS score of 5.5 (MEDIUM). In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/hugetlb: fix hugetlb_pmd_shared() Patch series "mm/hugetlb: fixes for PMD table sharing (incl. using mmu_gather)", v3. One fu...

How severe is CVE-2026-23100?

CVE-2026-23100 has been rated MEDIUM with a CVSS base score of 5.5/10. Review the CVSS metrics above for detailed severity breakdown.

Is there a patch for CVE-2026-23100?

Check the references section above for vendor advisories and patch information. Affected products include: Linux Linux Kernel.