CVE-2026-43286

mm/hugetlb: restore failed global reservations to subpool

MEDIUM
5.5
CVSS Score
Published: May 8, 2026 at 01:11 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 10:49 AM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorLinux Kernel

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Severity
MEDIUM5.5
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.1%

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/hugetlb: restore failed global reservations to subpool Commit a833a693a490 ("mm: hugetlb: fix incorrect fallback for subpool") fixed an underflow error for hstate->resv_huge_pages caused by incorrectly attributing globally requested pages to the subpool's reservation. Unfortunately, this fix also introduced the opposite problem, which would leave spool->used_hpages elevated if the globally requested pages could not be acquired. This is because while a subpool's reserve pages only accounts for what is requested and allocated from the subpool, its "used" counter keeps track of what is consumed in total, both from the subpool and globally. Thus, we need to adjust spool->used_hpages in the other direction, and make sure that globally requested pages are uncharged from the subpool's used counter. Each failed allocation attempt increments the used_hpages counter by how many pages were requested from the global pool. Ultimately, this renders the subpool unusable, as used_hpages approaches the max limit. The issue can be reproduced as follows: 1. Allocate 4 hugetlb pages 2. Create a hugetlb mount with max=4, min=2 3. Consume 2 pages globally 4. Request 3 pages from the subpool (2 from subpool + 1 from global) 4.1 hugepage_subpool_get_pages(spool, 3) succeeds. used_hpages += 3 4.2 hugetlb_acct_memory(h, 1) fails: no global pages left used_hpages -= 2 5. Subpool now has used_hpages = 1, despite not being able to successfully allocate any hugepages. It believes it can now only allocate 3 more hugepages, not 4. With each failed allocation attempt incrementing the used counter, the subpool eventually reaches a point where its used counter equals its max counter. At that point, any future allocations that try to allocate hugeTLB pages from the subpool will fail, despite the subpool not having any of its hugeTLB pages consumed by any user. Once this happens, there is no way to make the subpool usable again, since there is no way to decrement the used counter as no process is really consuming the hugeTLB pages. The underflow issue that the original commit fixes still remains fixed as well. Without this fix, used_hpages would keep on leaking if hugetlb_acct_memory() fails.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v ≥ 6.14.86.14.8 ≤ v < 6.156.15 ≤ v < 6.18.166.15 ≤ v < 6.19.66.15 ≤ v < 7.06.15.1 ≤ v < 6.18.166.19 ≤ v < 6.19.66.14.86.157.0 rc17.0 rc27.0 rc37.0 rc47.0 rc57.0 rc67.0 rc7a833a693a490ecff8ba377654c6d4d333718b6b1adb5c2e55524e3a96b02c3904b0bb6d5a5404d21
Vendor states this is fixed in 1d3f9bb4c8af70304d19c22e30f5d16a2d589bb5 (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 5eac1322a7b14b8cd05ec896618278b90fba7f39 (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in f055897c975d079a90af873c791ab58cf0f6f2a5 (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.15 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.18.16 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.19.6 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 7.0 (unaffected)

CVSS

Attack Vector
LOCAL
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
LOW
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusANALYZED
CWE
CWE-401

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