[PATCH 6.1.y 6.6.y 6.12.y] x86/mm: Fix check/use ordering in switch_mm_irqs_off()
From: Eric Hagberg
Date: Fri Jul 17 2026 - 12:12:19 EST
This is a stable-specific fix. There is no single upstream commit to
cherry-pick; the equivalent mainline fix is commit 83b0177a6c48
("x86/mm: Fix SMP ordering in switch_mm_irqs_off()"), which is in
v6.18 but does not apply to these trees because the surrounding code
was refactored.
The backports of commit fea4e317f9e7 ("x86/mm: Eliminate window where
TLB flushes may be inadvertently skipped") -- the fix for
CVE-2025-37964 -- to the 6.1, 6.6 and 6.12 trees ended up with two
code blocks in the wrong order relative to mainline. The fix depends
on setting cpu_tlbstate.loaded_mm to LOADED_MM_SWITCHING *before*
reading tlb_gen, so that a concurrent TLB shootdown either sees
LOADED_MM_SWITCHING and sends the IPI, or the switching CPU sees the
updated tlb_gen. In the stable trees the write of LOADED_MM_SWITCHING
was placed after the tlb_gen read, so the race window fea4e317f9e7 was
meant to close is still open and CVE-2025-37964 is unfixed there:
a process can be left running with stale TLB entries, which typically
manifests as rare, hard-to-bisect memory corruption or segfaults.
This has been confirmed by several independent parties:
- reproduced on 6.1.y/6.6.y/6.12.y with the test program in [1],
and confirmed fixed by this patch
- Seth Forshee saw segfaults on 6.12.y within ~30 minutes of running
a test workload; with this patch it ran 18 hours cleanly [2]
- Greg Thelen reports 6.6.y- and 6.12.y-based test failures fixed by
this patch [3]
Dave Hansen acked the patch [4] and has no objection to it going into
stable [5].
The patch below is against 6.12.y; the identical change applies to
6.1.y and 6.6.y. (The cpumask_test_cpu()/smp_mb() portion of the
mainline fix is not needed here because commit 209954cbc7d0
("x86/mm/tlb: Update mm_cpumask lazily") was never backported to these
trees.)
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHDw0oGd0B4=uuv8NGqbUQ_ZVmSheU2bN70e4QhFXWvuAZdt2w@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/aZYWXe739XUJrBld@do-x1carbon/
[3] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHH2K0brx9omC9QYyB6Lio3t_1Lf8v=VaFoiaG23UgQ-aec89Q@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/
[4] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/281e8018-5506-4a79-8775-e0de7e58b95f@xxxxxxxxx/
[5] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/86421ee5-5332-46c2-bb48-d40310b818be@xxxxxxxxx/
Fixes: fea4e317f9e7 ("x86/mm: Eliminate window where TLB flushes may be inadvertently skipped") # 6.1.y/6.6.y/6.12.y backports
Acked-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@xxxxxxxxx>
Tested-by: Seth Forshee <sforshee@xxxxxxxxxx>
Tested-by: Eric Hagberg <ehagberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Stephen Dolan <sdolan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
arch/x86/mm/tlb.c | 16 ++++++++--------
1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)
diff --git a/arch/x86/mm/tlb.c b/arch/x86/mm/tlb.c
index 8629d90fdcd9..e87ef47cfb09 100644
--- a/arch/x86/mm/tlb.c
+++ b/arch/x86/mm/tlb.c
@@ -606,6 +606,14 @@ void switch_mm_irqs_off(struct mm_struct *unused, struct mm_struct *next,
*/
cond_mitigation(tsk);
+ /*
+ * Indicate that CR3 is about to change. nmi_uaccess_okay()
+ * and others are sensitive to the window where mm_cpumask(),
+ * CR3 and cpu_tlbstate.loaded_mm are not all in sync.
+ */
+ this_cpu_write(cpu_tlbstate.loaded_mm, LOADED_MM_SWITCHING);
+ barrier();
+
/*
* Stop remote flushes for the previous mm.
* Skip kernel threads; we never send init_mm TLB flushing IPIs,
@@ -623,14 +631,6 @@ void switch_mm_irqs_off(struct mm_struct *unused, struct mm_struct *next,
next_tlb_gen = atomic64_read(&next->context.tlb_gen);
choose_new_asid(next, next_tlb_gen, &new_asid, &need_flush);
-
- /*
- * Indicate that CR3 is about to change. nmi_uaccess_okay()
- * and others are sensitive to the window where mm_cpumask(),
- * CR3 and cpu_tlbstate.loaded_mm are not all in sync.
- */
- this_cpu_write(cpu_tlbstate.loaded_mm, LOADED_MM_SWITCHING);
- barrier();
}
new_lam = mm_lam_cr3_mask(next);