Vulnerability CVE-2021-47262

Vulnerability CVE-2021-47262

Published: 2024-05-21

Description:

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

KVM: x86: Ensure liveliness of nested VM-Enter fail tracepoint message

Use the __string() machinery provided by the tracing subystem to make a
copy of the string literals consumed by the "nested VM-Enter failed"
tracepoint. A complete copy is necessary to ensure that the tracepoint
can't outlive the data/memory it consumes and deference stale memory.

Because the tracepoint itself is defined by kvm, if kvm-intel and/or
kvm-amd are built as modules, the memory holding the string literals
defined by the vendor modules will be freed when the module is unloaded,
whereas the tracepoint and its data in the ring buffer will live until
kvm is unloaded (or "indefinitely" if kvm is built-in).

This bug has existed since the tracepoint was added, but was recently
exposed by a new check in tracing to detect exactly this type of bug.

fmt: '%s%s
' current_buffer: ' vmx_dirty_log_t-140127 [003] .... kvm_nested_vmenter_failed: '
WARNING: CPU: 3 PID: 140134 at kernel/trace/trace.c:3759 trace_check_vprintf+0x3be/0x3e0
CPU: 3 PID: 140134 Comm: less Not tainted 5.13.0-rc1-ce2e73ce600a-req #184
Hardware name: ASUS Q87M-E/Q87M-E, BIOS 1102 03/03/2014
RIP: 0010:trace_check_vprintf+0x3be/0x3e0
Code: <0f> 0b 44 8b 4c 24 1c e9 a9 fe ff ff c6 44 02 ff 00 49 8b 97 b0 20
RSP: 0018:ffffa895cc37bcb0 EFLAGS: 00010282
RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ffffa895cc37bd08 RCX: 0000000000000027
RDX: 0000000000000027 RSI: 00000000ffffdfff RDI: ffff9766cfad74f8
RBP: ffffffffc0a041d4 R08: ffff9766cfad74f0 R09: ffffa895cc37bad8
R10: 0000000000000001 R11: 0000000000000001 R12: ffffffffc0a041d4
R13: ffffffffc0f4dba8 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: ffff976409f2c000
FS: 00007f92fa200740(0000) GS:ffff9766cfac0000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
CR2: 0000559bd11b0000 CR3: 000000019fbaa002 CR4: 00000000001726e0
Call Trace:
trace_event_printf+0x5e/0x80
trace_raw_output_kvm_nested_vmenter_failed+0x3a/0x60 [kvm]
print_trace_line+0x1dd/0x4e0
s_show+0x45/0x150
seq_read_iter+0x2d5/0x4c0
seq_read+0x106/0x150
vfs_read+0x98/0x180
ksys_read+0x5f/0xe0
do_syscall_64+0x40/0xb0
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae

References:

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/796d3bd4ac9316e70c181189318cd2bd98af34bc

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d046f724bbd725a24007b7e52b2d675249870888

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9fb088ce13bc3c59a51260207b487db3e556f275

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f31500b0d437a2464ca5972d8f5439e156b74960

Copyright 2026, cxsecurity.com