Re: [PATCH] vfio/cdx: prevent read-only region mappings from becoming writable

From: Alex Williamson

Date: Tue Sep 15 2026 - 18:29:57 EST


On Wed, 19 Aug 2026 11:42:03 +0300
Abdifatah Suruur <suruurism@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> vfio_cdx_mmap() rejects writable mappings of regions without the WRITE
> flag, but leaves VM_MAYWRITE set. Userspace can map such a region
> read-only and then upgrade the mapping to writable with mprotect(),
> writing to MMIO regions the device marks read-only.
>
> Clear VM_MAYWRITE for regions without the WRITE flag, as i915 does for
> its read-only objects and as fixed in drm/vc4 (CVE-2026-68445) and
> drm/panthor (CVE-2024-53071) and ptp: vmclock (commit
> a5edadbae57e2298a56cf7a4e774a027905a331f).
>
> Fixes: 234489ac56130 ("vfio/cdx: add support for CDX bus")
> Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Signed-off-by: Abdifatah Suruur <suruurism@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> ---
> --- a/drivers/vfio/cdx/main.c
> +++ b/drivers/vfio/cdx/main.c
> @@ -284,5 +284,9 @@
> if (!(vdev->regions[index].flags & VFIO_REGION_INFO_FLAG_WRITE) &&
> (vma->vm_flags & VM_WRITE))
> return -EPERM;
>
> + /* Prevent read-only region mappings from being upgraded with mprotect() */
> + if (!(vdev->regions[index].flags & VFIO_REGION_INFO_FLAG_WRITE))
> + vm_flags_clear(vma, VM_MAYWRITE);
> +
> return vfio_cdx_mmap_mmio(vdev->regions[index], vma);
> }
>

AFAICT, this should have the same acknowledgment as platform and fsl-mc
that this is hardening and unreachable, with stable removed, cdx never
exposes a read-only region.

Also see comments on platform vm_pgoff patch. Thanks,

Alex