CVE-2024-57839: Revert "readahead: properly shorten readahead when falling back to do_page_cache_ra()"

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: 2025-01-11 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-704

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: Revert "readahead: properly shorten readahead when falling back to do_page_cache_ra()" This reverts commit 7c877586da3178974a8a94577b6045a48377ff25. Anders and Philippe have reported that recent kernels occasionally hang when used with NFS in readahead code. The problem has been bisected to 7c877586da3 ("readahead: properly shorten readahead when falling back to do_page_cache_ra()"). The cause of the problem is that ra->size can be shrunk by read_pages() call and subsequently we end up calling do_page_cache_ra() with negative (read huge positive) number of pages. Let's revert 7c877586da3 for now until we can find a proper way how the logic in read_pages() and page_cache_ra_order() can coexist. This can lead to reduced readahead throughput due to readahead window confusion but that's better than outright hangs.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 6.11 before 6.12.5; 6.13-rc1 — fixed in 6.12.5

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.12.5. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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