CVE-2026-46250 MIPS: Work around LLVM bug when gp is used as global register variable
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

MIPS: Work around LLVM bug when gp is used as global register variable

On MIPS, __current_thread_info is defined as global register variable
locating in $gp, and is simply assigned with new address during kernel
relocation.

This however is broken with LLVM, which always restores $gp if it finds
$gp is clobbered in any form, including when intentionally through a
global register variable. This is against GCC's documentation[1], which
requires a callee-saved register used as global register variable not to
be restored if it's clobbered.

As a result, $gp will continue to point to the unrelocated kernel after
the epilog of relocate_kernel(), leading to an early crash in init_idle,

[    0.000000] CPU 0 Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 0000000000000000, epc == ffffffff81afada8, ra == ffffffff81afad90
[    0.000000] Oops[#1]:
[    0.000000] CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper Tainted: G        W           6.19.0-rc5-00262-gd3eeb99bbc99-dirty #188 VOLUNTARY
[    0.000000] Tainted: [W]=WARN
[    0.000000] Hardware name: loongson,loongson64v-4core-virtio
[    0.000000] $ 0   : 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000001 0000000000000000
[    0.000000] $ 4   : ffffffff80b80ec0 ffffffff80b53d48 0000000000000000 00000000000f4240
[    0.000000] $ 8   : 0000000000000100 ffffffff81d82f80 ffffffff81d82f80 0000000000000001
[    0.000000] $12   : 0000000000000000 ffffffff81776f58 00000000000005da 0000000000000002
[    0.000000] $16   : ffffffff80b80e40 0000000000000000 ffffffff80b81614 9800000005dfbe80
[    0.000000] $20   : 00000000540000e0 ffffffff81980000 0000000000000000 ffffffff80f81c80
[    0.000000] $24   : 0000000000000a26 ffffffff8114fb90
[    0.000000] $28   : ffffffff80b50000 ffffffff80b53d40 0000000000000000 ffffffff81afad90
[    0.000000] Hi    : 0000000000000000
[    0.000000] Lo    : 0000000000000000
[    0.000000] epc   : ffffffff81afada8 init_idle+0x130/0x270
[    0.000000] ra    : ffffffff81afad90 init_idle+0x118/0x270
[    0.000000] Status: 540000e2	KX SX UX KERNEL EXL
[    0.000000] Cause : 00000008 (ExcCode 02)
[    0.000000] BadVA : 0000000000000000
[    0.000000] PrId  : 00006305 (ICT Loongson-3)
[    0.000000] Process swapper (pid: 0, threadinfo=(____ptrval____), task=(____ptrval____), tls=0000000000000000)
[    0.000000] Stack : 9800000005dfbf00 ffffffff8178e950 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
[    0.000000]         0000000000000000 ffffffff81970000 000000000000003f ffffffff810a6528
[    0.000000]         0000000000000001 9800000005dfbe80 9800000005dfbf00 ffffffff81980000
[    0.000000]         ffffffff810a6450 ffffffff81afb6c0 0000000000000000 ffffffff810a2258
[    0.000000]         ffffffff81d82ec8 ffffffff8198d010 ffffffff81b67e80 ffffffff8197dd98
[    0.000000]         ffffffff81d81c80 ffffffff81930000 0000000000000040 0000000000000000
[    0.000000]         0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
[    0.000000]         0000000000000000 000000000000009e ffffffff9fc01000 0000000000000000
[    0.000000]         0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
[    0.000000]         0000000000000000 ffffffff81ae86dc ffffffff81b3c741 0000000000000002
[    0.000000]         ...
[    0.000000] Call Trace:
[    0.000000] [<ffffffff81afada8>] init_idle+0x130/0x270
[    0.000000] [<ffffffff81afb6c0>] sched_init+0x5c8/0x6c0
[    0.000000] [<ffffffff81ae86dc>] start_kernel+0x27c/0x7a8

This bug has been reported to LLVM[2] and affects version from (at
least) 18 to 21. Let's work around this by using inline assembly to
assign $gp before a fix is widely available.
Affected products: vendor: Linux
product: Linux
default_status: unaffected
vendor: Linux
product: Linux
default_status: affected
CVSS v3.1: version: 3.1
vectorString: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:H
baseScore: 7.3
baseSeverity: HIGH
Published: 2026-06-03T15:49:46.390Z