CVE-2025-40218: mm/damon/vaddr: do not repeat pte_offset_map_lock() until success

Severity: unknown
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: 2025-12-04 · updated 2026-10-19

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/damon/vaddr: do not repeat pte_offset_map_lock() until success DAMON's virtual address space operation set implementation (vaddr) calls pte_offset_map_lock() inside the page table walk callback function. This is for reading and writing page table accessed bits. If pte_offset_map_lock() fails, it retries by returning the page table walk callback function with ACTION_AGAIN. pte_offset_map_lock() can continuously fail if the target is a pmd migration entry, though. Hence it could cause an infinite page table walk if the migration cannot be done until the page table walk is finished. This indeed caused a soft lockup when CPU hotplugging and DAMON were running in parallel. Avoid the infinite loop by simply not retrying the page table walk. DAMON is promising only a best-effort accuracy, so missing access to such pages is no problem.

Affected products

Linux kernel: 6.5 — fixed in 6.18

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.18. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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