CVE-2022-50091: locking/csd_lock: Change csdlock_debug from early_param to __setup

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2025-06-18 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-476

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: locking/csd_lock: Change csdlock_debug from early_param to __setup The csdlock_debug kernel-boot parameter is parsed by the early_param() function csdlock_debug(). If set, csdlock_debug() invokes static_branch_enable() to enable csd_lock_wait feature, which triggers a panic on arm64 for kernels built with CONFIG_SPARSEMEM=y and CONFIG_SPARSEMEM_VMEMMAP=n. With CONFIG_SPARSEMEM_VMEMMAP=n, __nr_to_section is called in static_key_enable() and returns NULL, resulting in a NULL dereference because mem_section is initialized only later in sparse_init(). This is also a problem for powerpc because early_param() functions are invoked earlier than jump_label_init(), also resulting in static_key_enable() failures. These failures cause the warning "static key 'xxx' used before call to jump_label_init()". Thus, early_param is too early for csd_lock_wait to run static_branch_enable(), so changes it to __setup to fix these.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 5.13 before 5.15.61; from 5.16 before 5.18.18; from 5.19 before 5.19.2 — fixed in 5.15.61, 5.18.18, 5.19.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.15.61, 5.18.18, 5.19.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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