CVE: CVE-2023-54165
Published: 2025-12-30
Description: In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

zsmalloc: move LRU update from zs_map_object() to zs_malloc()

Under memory pressure, we sometimes observe the following crash:

[ 5694.832838] ------------[ cut here ]------------
[ 5694.842093] list_del corruption, ffff888014b6a448->next is LIST_POISON1 (dead[PII_REDACTED]00)
[ 5694.858677] WARNING: CPU: 33 PID: 418824 at lib/list_debug.c:47 __list_del_entry_valid+0x42/0x80
[ 5694.961820] CPU: 33 PID: 418824 Comm: fuse_counters.s Kdump: loaded Tainted: G S                5.19.0-0_fbk3_rc3_hoangnhatpzsdynshrv41_10870_g85a9558a25de #1
[ 5694.990194] Hardware name: Wiwynn Twin Lakes MP/Twin Lakes Passive MP, BIOS YMM16 05/24/2021
[ 5695.007072] RIP: 0010:__list_del_entry_valid+0x42/0x80
[ 5695.017351] Code: 08 48 83 c2 22 48 39 d0 74 24 48 8b 10 48 39 f2 75 2c 48 8b 51 08 b0 01 48 39 f2 75 34 c3 48 c7 c7 55 d7 78 82 e8 4e 45 3b 00 <0f> 0b eb 31 48 c7 c7 27 a8 70 82 e8 3e 45 3b 00 0f 0b eb 21 48 c7
[ 5695.054919] RSP: 0018:ffffc90027aef4f0 EFLAGS: 00010246
[ 5695.065366] RAX: 41fe[PII_REDACTED]00 RBX: ffff[PII_REDACTED]80 RCX: [PII_REDACTED]
[ 5695.079636] RDX: ffff88886006c280 RSI: ffff[PII_REDACTED]80 RDI: ffff[PII_REDACTED]80
[ 5695.093904] RBP: [PII_REDACTED] R08: [PII_REDACTED] R09: ffffc90027aef370
[ 5695.108175] R10: [PII_REDACTED] R11: ffffffff82fdf1c0 R12: [PII_REDACTED]
[ 5695.122447] R13: ffff888014b6a448 R14: ffff888014b6a420 R15:[PII_REDACTED]8dc240
[ 5695.136717] FS:  00007f23a7d3f740(0000) GS:ffff[PII_REDACTED]00(0000) knlGS:[PII_REDACTED]
[ 5695.152899] CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: [PII_REDACTED]
[ 5695.164388] CR2: 0000560ceaab6ac0 CR3: 000000001c06c001 CR4:[PII_REDACTED]7706e0
[ 5695.178659] DR0: [PII_REDACTED] DR1: [PII_REDACTED] DR2: [PII_REDACTED]
[ 5695.192927] DR3: [PII_REDACTED] DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: [PII_REDACTED]
[ 5695.207197] PKRU: 55555554
[ 5695.212602] Call Trace:
[ 5695.217486]  <TASK>
[ 5695.221674]  zs_map_object+0x91/0x270
[ 5695.229000]  zswap_frontswap_store+0x33d/0x870
[ 5695.237885]  ? do_raw_spin_lock+0x5d/0xa0
[ 5695.245899]  __frontswap_store+0x51/0xb0
[ 5695.253742]  swap_writepage+0x3c/0x60
[ 5695.261063]  shrink_page_list+0x738/0x1230
[ 5695.269255]  shrink_lruvec+0x5ec/0xcd0
[ 5695.276749]  ? shrink_slab+0x187/0x5f0
[ 5695.284240]  ? mem_cgroup_iter+0x6e/0x120
[ 5695.292255]  shrink_node+0x293/0x7b0
[ 5695.299402]  do_try_to_free_pages+0xea/0x550
[ 5695.307940]  try_to_free_pages+0x19a/0x490
[ 5695.316126]  __folio_alloc+0x19ff/0x3e40
[ 5695.323971]  ? __filemap_get_folio+0x8a/0x4e0
[ 5695.332681]  ? walk_component+0x2a8/0xb50
[ 5695.340697]  ? generic_permission+0xda/0x2a0
[ 5695.349231]  ? __filemap_get_folio+0x8a/0x4e0
[ 5695.357940]  ? walk_component+0x2a8/0xb50
[ 5695.365955]  vma_alloc_folio+0x10e/0x570
[ 5695.373796]  ? walk_component+0x52/0xb50
[ 5695.381634]  wp_page_copy+0x38c/0xc10
[ 5695.388953]  ? filename_lookup+0x378/0xbc0
[ 5695.397140]  handle_mm_fault+0x87f/0x1800
[ 5695.405157]  do_user_addr_fault+0x1bd/0x570
[ 5695.413520]  exc_page_fault+0x5d/0x110
[ 5695.421017]  asm_exc_page_fault+0x22/0x30

After some investigation, I have found the following issue: unlike other
zswap backends, zsmalloc performs the LRU list update at the object
mapping time, rather than when the slot for the object is allocated.
This deviation was discussed and agreed upon during the review process
of the zsmalloc writeback patch series:

https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/Y3flcAXNxxrvy3ZH@cmpxchg.org/

Unfortunately, this introduces a subtle bug that occurs when there is a
concurrent store and reclaim, which interleave as follows:

zswap_frontswap_store()            shrink_worker()
  zs_malloc()                        zs_zpool_shrink()
    spin_lock(&pool->lock)             zs_reclaim_page()
    zspage = find_get_zspage()
    spin_unlock(&pool->lock)
                                         spin_lock(&pool->lock)
                                         zspage = list_first_entry(&pool->lru)
                  
---truncated---
References: https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d461aac924b937bcb4fd0ca1242b3ef6868ecddd; https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e95adf7486f2cb5f1bb303113ca[PII_REDACTED]3e9