Linux Kernel up to 5.10.83/5.15.6 HTTP Request sk_page_frag memory corruption

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 5.10.83/5.15.6. It has been declared as critical. This issue affects the function sk_page_frag of the component HTTP Request Handler. The manipulation results in memory corruption. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2021-47544. No exploit is available. It is recommended to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, was found in Linux Kernel up to 5.10.83/5.15.6. Affected is the function sk_page_frag of the component HTTP Request Handler. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a memory corruption vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-119. The product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it can read from or write to a memory location that is outside of the intended boundary of the buffer. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

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)

The advisory is shared for download at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2021-47544. The exploitability is told to be easy. There are known technical details, but no exploit is available. The current price for an exploit might be approx. USD $0-$5k (estimation calculated on 09/19/2025).

Upgrading to version 5.10.84 or 5.15.7 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch c6f340a331fb/5a9afcd827ca/dacb5d8875cc is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at git.kernel.org. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

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Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 5.10.0
• 5.10.1
• 5.10.2
• 5.10.3
• 5.10.4
• 5.10.5
• 5.10.6
• 5.10.7
• 5.10.8
• 5.10.9
• 5.10.10
• 5.10.11
• 5.10.12
• 5.10.13
• 5.10.14
• 5.10.15
• 5.10.16
• 5.10.17
• 5.10.18
• 5.10.19
• 5.10.20
• 5.10.21
• 5.10.22
• 5.10.23
• 5.10.24
• 5.10.25
• 5.10.26
• 5.10.27
• 5.10.28
• 5.10.29
• 5.10.30
• 5.10.31
• 5.10.32
• 5.10.33
• 5.10.34
• 5.10.35
• 5.10.36
• 5.10.37
• 5.10.38
• 5.10.39
• 5.10.40
• 5.10.41
• 5.10.42
• 5.10.43
• 5.10.44
• 5.10.45
• 5.10.46
• 5.10.47
• 5.10.48
• 5.10.49
• 5.10.50
• 5.10.51
• 5.10.52
• 5.10.53
• 5.10.54
• 5.10.55
• 5.10.56
• 5.10.57
• 5.10.58
• 5.10.59
• 5.10.60
• 5.10.61
• 5.10.62
• 5.10.63
• 5.10.64
• 5.10.65
• 5.10.66
• 5.10.67
• 5.10.68
• 5.10.69
• 5.10.70
• 5.10.71
• 5.10.72
• 5.10.73
• 5.10.74
• 5.10.75
• 5.10.76
• 5.10.77
• 5.10.78
• 5.10.79
• 5.10.80
• 5.10.81
• 5.10.82
• 5.10.83
• 5.15.0
• 5.15.1
• 5.15.2
• 5.15.3
• 5.15.4
• 5.15.5
• 5.15.6

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

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Entryinfo

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