CVE-2026-53154: mm/hugetlb: restore reservation on error in hugetlb folio copy paths

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-06-25 · updated 2026-07-07
Weakness: CWE-772

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/hugetlb: restore reservation on error in hugetlb folio copy paths Two sites in mm/hugetlb.c allocate a hugetlb folio via alloc_hugetlb_folio() (consuming a VMA reservation) and then call copy_user_large_folio(), which became int-returning in commit 1cb9dc4b475c ("mm: hwpoison: support recovery from HugePage copy-on-write faults") and can now fail (e.g. -EHWPOISON on a hwpoisoned source page). On the failure path, folio_put() restores the global hugetlb pool count through free_huge_folio(), but the per-VMA reservation map entry is left marked consumed: - hugetlb_mfill_atomic_pte() resubmission path (UFFDIO_COPY) - copy_hugetlb_page_range() fork-time CoW path when hugetlb_try_dup_anon_rmap() fails (rare: pinned hugetlb anon folio under fork) User-visible effect: on UFFDIO_COPY into a private hugetlb VMA where the resubmission copy fails, the reservation for that address is leaked from the VMA's reserve map. A subsequent fault at the same address takes the no-reservation path, and under hugetlb pool pressure the task is SIGBUSed at an address it had previously reserved. The fork-time CoW path leaks the same way in the child VMA's reserve map, though it requires the much rarer combination of pinned hugetlb anon page + hwpoisoned source. Add the missing restore_reserve_on_error() call before folio_put() on both error paths.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 6.4 before 6.6.143; from 6.7 before 6.12.94; from 6.13 before 6.18.36; from 6.19 before 7.0.13; 7.1-rc1, 7.1-rc2, 7.1-rc3, 7.1-rc4, 7.1-rc5, 7.1-rc6 — fixed in 6.12.94, 6.18.36, 6.6.143, 7.0.13

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.12.94, 6.18.36, 6.6.143, 7.0.13. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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