vulnerability

Ubuntu: (Multiple Advisories) (CVE-2025-38170): Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Severity
5
CVSS
(AV:L/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:C)
Published
Jul 3, 2025
Added
Jul 7, 2025
Modified
Feb 13, 2026

Description

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

arm64/fpsimd: Discard stale CPU state when handling SME traps

The logic for handling SME traps manipulates saved FPSIMD/SVE/SME state
incorrectly, and a race with preemption can result in a task having
TIF_SME set and TIF_FOREIGN_FPSTATE clear even though the live CPU state
is stale (e.g. with SME traps enabled). This can result in warnings from
do_sme_acc() where SME traps are not expected while TIF_SME is set:

| /* With TIF_SME userspace shouldn't generate any traps */
| if (test_and_set_thread_flag(TIF_SME))
| WARN_ON(1);

This is very similar to the SVE issue we fixed in commit:

751ecf6afd6568ad ("arm64/sve: Discard stale CPU state when handling SVE traps")

The race can occur when the SME trap handler is preempted before and
after manipulating the saved FPSIMD/SVE/SME state, starting and ending on
the same CPU, e.g.

| void do_sme_acc(unsigned long esr, struct pt_regs *regs)
| {
| // Trap on CPU 0 with TIF_SME clear, SME traps enabled
| // task->fpsimd_cpu is 0.
| // per_cpu_ptr(&fpsimd_last_state, 0) is task.
|
| ...
|
| // Preempted; migrated from CPU 0 to CPU 1.
| // TIF_FOREIGN_FPSTATE is set.
|
| get_cpu_fpsimd_context();
|
| /* With TIF_SME userspace shouldn't generate any traps */
| if (test_and_set_thread_flag(TIF_SME))
| WARN_ON(1);
|
| if (!test_thread_flag(TIF_FOREIGN_FPSTATE)) {
| unsigned long vq_minus_one =
| sve_vq_from_vl(task_get_sme_vl(current)) - 1;
| sme_set_vq(vq_minus_one);
|
| fpsimd_bind_task_to_cpu();
| }
|
| put_cpu_fpsimd_context();
|
| // Preempted; migrated from CPU 1 to CPU 0.
| // task->fpsimd_cpu is still 0
| // If per_cpu_ptr(&fpsimd_last_state, 0) is still task then:
| // - Stale HW state is reused (with SME traps enabled)
| // - TIF_FOREIGN_FPSTATE is cleared
| // - A return to userspace skips HW state restore
| }

Fix the case where the state is not live and TIF_FOREIGN_FPSTATE is set
by calling fpsimd_flush_task_state() to detach from the saved CPU
state. This ensures that a subsequent context switch will not reuse the
stale CPU state, and will instead set TIF_FOREIGN_FPSTATE, forcing the
new state to be reloaded from memory prior to a return to userspace.

Note: this was originallly posted as [1].

[ Rutland: rewrite commit message ]

Solutions

ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-6-14-0-1012-azureubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-6-14-0-1012-oemubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-6-14-0-1012-realtimeubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-6-14-0-1013-awsubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-6-14-0-1013-aws-64kubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-6-14-0-1013-oracleubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-6-14-0-1013-oracle-64kubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-6-14-0-1014-raspiubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-6-14-0-1016-gcpubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-6-14-0-1016-gcp-64kubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-6-14-0-32-genericubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-6-14-0-32-generic-64kubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-6-8-0-100-genericubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-6-8-0-100-generic-64kubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-6-8-0-1047-gcpubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-6-8-0-1047-gcp-64kubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-6-8-0-1047-raspiubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-6-8-1-1041-realtimeubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-awsubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-aws-6-14ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-aws-64kubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-aws-64k-6-14ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-azureubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-azure-6-14ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-gcpubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-gcp-6-14ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-gcp-6-8ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-gcp-64kubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-gcp-64k-6-14ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-gcp-64k-6-8ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-genericubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-generic-6-14ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-generic-6-8ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-generic-64kubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-generic-64k-6-14ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-generic-64k-6-8ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-generic-64k-hwe-24-04ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-generic-hwe-24-04ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-generic-lpaeubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-intel-iotgubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-kvmubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-oem-24-04ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-oem-24-04aubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-oem-24-04bubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-oem-24-04cubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-oem-6-14ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-oracleubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-oracle-6-14ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-oracle-64kubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-oracle-64k-6-14ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-raspiubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-raspi-6-14ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-raspi-6-8ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-realtimeubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-realtime-6-14ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-realtime-6-8-1ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-realtime-hwe-22-04ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-realtime-hwe-24-04ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-virtualubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-virtual-6-14ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-virtual-6-8ubuntu-upgrade-linux-image-virtual-hwe-24-04

References

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