CVE-2022-49446: nvdimm: Fix firmware activation deadlock scenarios

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2025-02-26 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-667

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nvdimm: Fix firmware activation deadlock scenarios Lockdep reports the following deadlock scenarios for CXL root device power-management, device_prepare(), operations, and device_shutdown() operations for 'nd_region' devices: Chain exists of: &nvdimm_region_key --> &nvdimm_bus->reconfig_mutex --> system_transition_mutex Possible unsafe locking scenario: CPU0 CPU1 ---- ---- lock(system_transition_mutex); lock(&nvdimm_bus->reconfig_mutex); lock(system_transition_mutex); lock(&nvdimm_region_key); Chain exists of: &cxl_nvdimm_bridge_key --> acpi_scan_lock --> &cxl_root_key Possible unsafe locking scenario: CPU0 CPU1 ---- ---- lock(&cxl_root_key); lock(acpi_scan_lock); lock(&cxl_root_key); lock(&cxl_nvdimm_bridge_key); These stem from holding nvdimm_bus_lock() over hibernate_quiet_exec() which walks the entire system device topology taking device_lock() along the way. The nvdimm_bus_lock() is protecting against unregistration, multiple simultaneous ops callers, and preventing activate_show() from racing activate_store(). For the first 2, the lock is redundant. Unregistration already flushes all ops users, and sysfs already prevents multiple threads to be active in an ops handler at the same time. For the last userspace should already be waiting for its last activate_store() to complete, and does not need activate_show() to flush the write side, so this lock usage can be deleted in these attributes.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 5.9 before 5.10.121; from 5.11 before 5.15.46; from 5.16 before 5.17.14; from 5.18 before 5.18.3 — fixed in 5.10.121, 5.15.46, 5.17.14, 5.18.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.10.121, 5.15.46, 5.17.14, 5.18.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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