CVE-2025-21881 Affecting kernel-rt-trace package, versions *

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-rt-trace package and not the kernel-rt-trace package as distributed by Centos. See How to fix? for Centos:7 relevant fixed versions and status.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

uprobes: Reject the shared zeropage in uprobe_write_opcode()

We triggered the following crash in syzkaller tests:

BUG: Bad page state in process syz.7.38 pfn:1eff3 page: refcount:0 mapcount:0 mapping:0000000000000000 index:0x0 pfn:0x1eff3 flags: 0x3fffff00004004(referenced|reserved|node=0|zone=1|lastcpupid=0x1fffff) raw: 003fffff00004004 ffffe6c6c07bfcc8 ffffe6c6c07bfcc8 0000000000000000 raw: 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 00000000fffffffe 0000000000000000 page dumped because: PAGE_FLAGS_CHECK_AT_FREE flag(s) set Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.13.0-1ubuntu1.1 04/01/2014 Call Trace: <TASK> dump_stack_lvl+0x32/0x50 bad_page+0x69/0xf0 free_unref_page_prepare+0x401/0x500 free_unref_page+0x6d/0x1b0 uprobe_write_opcode+0x460/0x8e0 install_breakpoint.part.0+0x51/0x80 register_for_each_vma+0x1d9/0x2b0 __uprobe_register+0x245/0x300 bpf_uprobe_multi_link_attach+0x29b/0x4f0 link_create+0x1e2/0x280 __sys_bpf+0x75f/0xac0 __x64_sys_bpf+0x1a/0x30 do_syscall_64+0x56/0x100 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x78/0xe2

BUG: Bad rss-counter state mm:00000000452453e0 type:MM_FILEPAGES val:-1

The following syzkaller test case can be used to reproduce:

r2 = creat(&(0x7f0000000000)='./file0\x00', 0x8) write$nbd(r2, &(0x7f0000000580)=ANY=[], 0x10) r4 = openat(0xffffffffffffff9c, &(0x7f0000000040)='./file0\x00', 0x42, 0x0) mmap$IORING_OFF_SQ_RING(&(0x7f0000ffd000/0x3000)=nil, 0x3000, 0x0, 0x12, r4, 0x0) r5 = userfaultfd(0x80801) ioctl$UFFDIO_API(r5, 0xc018aa3f, &(0x7f0000000040)={0xaa, 0x20}) r6 = userfaultfd(0x80801) ioctl$UFFDIO_API(r6, 0xc018aa3f, &(0x7f0000000140)) ioctl$UFFDIO_REGISTER(r6, 0xc020aa00, &(0x7f0000000100)={{&(0x7f0000ffc000/0x4000)=nil, 0x4000}, 0x2}) ioctl$UFFDIO_ZEROPAGE(r5, 0xc020aa04, &(0x7f0000000000)={{&(0x7f0000ffd000/0x1000)=nil, 0x1000}}) r7 = bpf$PROG_LOAD(0x5, &(0x7f0000000140)={0x2, 0x3, &(0x7f0000000200)=ANY=[@ANYBLOB="1800000000120000000000000000000095"], &(0x7f0000000000)='GPL\x00', 0x7, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, '\x00', 0x0, @fallback=0x30, 0xffffffffffffffff, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x10, 0x0, @void, @value}, 0x94) bpf$BPF_LINK_CREATE_XDP(0x1c, &(0x7f0000000040)={r7, 0x0, 0x30, 0x1e, @val=@uprobe_multi={&(0x7f0000000080)='./file0\x00', &(0x7f0000000100)=[0x2], 0x0, 0x0, 0x1}}, 0x40)

The cause is that zero pfn is set to the PTE without increasing the RSS count in mfill_atomic_pte_zeropage() and the refcount of zero folio does not increase accordingly. Then, the operation on the same pfn is performed in uprobe_write_opcode()->__replace_page() to unconditional decrease the RSS count and old_folio's refcount.

Therefore, two bugs are introduced:

1. The RSS count is incorrect, when process exit, the check_mm() report error "Bad rss-count".

2. The reserved folio (zero folio) is freed when folio->refcount is zero, then free_pages_prepare->free_page_is_bad() report error "Bad page state".

There is more, the following warning could also theoretically be triggered:

__replace_page() -> ... -> folio_remove_rmap_pte() -> VM_WARN_ON_FOLIO(is_zero_folio(folio), folio)

Considering that uprobe hit on the zero folio is a very rare case, just reject zero old folio immediately after get_user_page_vma_remote().

[ mingo: Cleaned up the changelog ]

• https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-21881
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0b6f19714588cf2366b0364234f97ba963688f63
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/13cca2b73e2b0ec3ea6d6615d615395621d22752
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/54011fc94422f094eaf47555284de70a4bc32bb9
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bddf10d26e6e5114e7415a0e442ec6f51a559468
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c4cb2bfa99513311886c1eb5c1c2ac26f3338a6e