Look up another CVE · open CVE-2026-90040 in the interactive tracker
CVE-2026-90040
KVM: SEV: Forcefully invalidate SNP VMSA if its backing gmem page is zapped
Published 2026-09-16 (33 days ago) by the Linux kernel CNA. Subsystem arch/x86. Debian urgency: unimportant.
What to do, per Debian release
Debian's own status for CVE-2026-90040 in every release this site tracks, and what each one means in practice. Every status below is the one the Debian Security Team publishes for this CVE. source
| Release | Status | Version | What this means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 12bookworm | not affected | 6.1.190-1 | Nothing to do. bookworm never shipped the vulnerable code. |
| Debian 13trixie | vulnerable | 6.12.113-1 | No fix published anywhere yet, neither in Debian nor upstream for the series trixie tracks. Watch the Debian tracker page for this CVE. Advisories for trixie have historically landed a median of 11 days after publication. |
| Debian 14forky | fixed | 7.2.6-1 | Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 7.2.6-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts. |
| Debian unstablesid | fixed | 7.2.6-1 | Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 7.2.6-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts. |
The vulnerability
What the bug is
Wire up a gmem_invalidate_range() call for SNP VMs, and use it to force vCPUs to reload/recheck their guest-provided VMSA if the backing gmem page is being invalidated, e.g. is being PUNCH_HOLE'd. Use the same core logic to handle invalidations as VMX does for the APIC-access page, as the two concepts are nearly identical: shove the physical address of a page into the vCPU's control structure: 1. Snapshot the invalidation sequence counter 2. Grab the pfn (from guest_memfd in this case) 3. Acquire mmu_lock for read 4. Re-request reload if retry is needed, otherwise commit the change. Note, the re-request action in #4 is necessary as KVM's retry logic is fuzzy, i.e. can get false positives. If the guest_memfd page has been dropped, at some point a subsequent reload will fail to get a PFN from guest_memfd, and KVM will fail KVM_RUN. If the retry was due to a false positive, KVM will retry until there are no relevant MMU notifier events (and will retry in the "outer" loop, i.e. will drop locks and resched as needed). Note #2! Take care to invalidate the VMSA when a relevant memslot is DELETED or MOVED, as invalidations in response to PUNCH_HOLE are predicated on memslot bindings (KVM doesn't know what GFN range(s) to invalidate without a binding). And more importantly, the VMSA mapping requires a memslot, i.e. must be invalidated if its memslots disappears, regardless of the state of the underlying guest_memfd inode. Failure to invalidate the vCPU's control.vmsa_pa (which is checked by pre_sev_run()) can prevent KVM from properly freeing the page as firmware will reject the RMPUPDATE to reclaim the page with FAIL_INUSE if the vCPU is actively running, i.e. if VMSA page is in-use. That in turn leads to an RMP #PF on the next use, as the page will still be assigned to the SNP VM. SEV-SNP: RMPUPDATE failed for PFN 78d198, pg_level: 1, ret: 3 SEV-SNP: PFN 0x78d198, RMP entry: [0xfff0000000144001 - 0x000000000000000f] CPU: 3 UID: 0 PID: 31345 Comm: sev_snp_vmsa_pu Tainted: G U O Tainted: [U]=USER, [O]=OOT_MODULE Hardware name: Google, Inc. Arcadia_IT_80/Arcadia_IT_80, BIOS 34.86.0-102 01/25/2026 Call Trace: <TASK> dump_stack_lvl+0x54/0x70 rmpupdate+0x12c/0x140 rmp_make_shared+0x3b/0x60 sev_gmem_invalidate+0xe0/0x170 [kvm_amd] delete_from_page_cache_batch+0x1d8/0x220 truncate_inode_pages_range+0x120/0x3d0 kvm_gmem_fallocate+0x19a/0x270 [kvm] vfs_fallocate+0x1bc/0x1f0 __x64_sys_fallocate+0x48/0x70 do_syscall_64+0x10a/0x480 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53 RIP: 0033:0x496c7e </TASK> ------------[ cut here ]------------ SEV: Failed to update RMP entry for PFN 0x78d198 error -14 WARNING: arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c:5160 at sev_gmem_invalidate+0x126/0x170 [kvm_amd], CPU#3: sev_snp_vmsa_pu/31345 CPU: 3 UID: 0 PID: 31345 Comm: sev_snp_vmsa_pu Tainted: G U O Tainted: [U]=USER, [O]=OOT_MODULE Hardware name: Google, Inc. Arcadia_IT_80/Arcadia_IT_80, BIOS 34.86.0-102 01/25/2026 RIP: 0010:sev_gmem_invalidate+0x12b/0x170 [kvm_amd] Call Trace: <TASK> delete_from_page_cache_batch+0x1d8/0x220 truncate_inode_pages_range+0x120/0x3d0 kvm_gmem_fallocate+0x19a/0x270 [kvm] vfs_fallocate+0x1bc/0x1f0 __x64_sys_fallocate+0x48/0x70 do_syscall_64+0x10a/0x480 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53 RIP: 0033:0x496c7e </TASK> irq event stamp: 20689 hardirqs last enabled at (20699): [<ffffffff8e76092c>] __console_unlock+0x5c/0x60 hardirqs last disabled at (20708): [<ffffffff8e760911>] __console_unlock+0x41/0x60 softirqs last enabled at (20722): [<ffffffff8e6cd74e>] __irq_exit_rcu+0x7e/0x140 softirqs last disabled at (20717): [<ffffffff8e6cd74e>] __irq_exit_rcu+0x7e/0x140 ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ffff99 ---truncated---
Where it lives
The fix touches these files. If the subsystem is one you do not use, the practical exposure is lower, though the package is still the vulnerable one.
arch/x86/include/asm/kvm-x86-ops.h
arch/x86/include/asm/kvm_host.h
arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c
arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c
arch/x86/kvm/svm/svm.c
arch/x86/kvm/svm/svm.h
arch/x86/kvm/x86.c
include/linux/kvm_host.h
virt/kvm/guest_memfd.c
- What this is
- KERNEL VIRTUAL MACHINE FOR X86 (KVM/x86)MAINTAINERS section matched on arch/x86/include/asm/kvm* · kvm@vger.kernel.org · Supported
- Kernel module
- kvm
Check it on the machine
grep -wE 'CONFIG_KVM|CONFIG_KVM_X86' /boot/config-$(uname -r)Reads the booted kernel's own configuration, on the machine and nowhere else. =y is built in, =m is a module, and an is not set line means the code is not there.
lsmod | grep -w kvmPrints a line if that module is loaded right now, and nothing if it is not. One that is not loaded can still be loaded later by anything that needs it.
Show whether Debian builds this, per release
Debian builds this, but not on every flavour. At least one release below builds the code on some of its kernel flavours and not on others, so the answer depends on the architecture and flavour installed.
- bookwormBnot built on arm64/rt/arm64, armhf/armmp, armhf/armmp-lpae, armhf/rt/armmp
- trixieMnot built on arm64/arm64, arm64/arm64-16k, arm64/cloud-arm64, arm64/rt/arm64, armel/rpi, armhf/armmp, armhf/armmp-lpae, armhf/rt/armmp, ppc64el/powerpc64le, ppc64el/powerpc64le-64k, riscv64/riscv64, s390x/s390x
- forky, sidMnot built on arm64/arm64, arm64/arm64-16k, arm64/cloud-arm64, arm64/rt-arm64, armhf/armmp, armhf/armmp-lpae, loong64/loong64, ppc64el/powerpc64le, ppc64el/powerpc64le-64k, riscv64/riscv64, s390x/s390x
- B
- built in on some, a module on others, absent on the rest
- M
- a module where it is built at all; some flavours do not build it
- Build switches
- CONFIG_KVM, CONFIG_KVM_X86
- Reads as
- all on means the file is compiled; any one off means it is not.
From the configuration Debian publishes for every kernel flavour it builds. It covers only the architectures Debian ships a linux-config package for, and nothing about a kernel you built yourself. Debian's own status above stays authoritative about the source package.MAINTAINERS kbuild Makefiles Debian linux-config packages
Signals
- Published
- 2026-09-16 (33 days ago)source
- CVSS
- no vector published, unrated
- Attack vector
- not published
- EPSS
- 0.21%, higher than 10.0% of all CVEssource
- CISA KEV
- not listedthe KEV catalogue
- Debian urgency
- unimportantsource
- Subsystem
- arch/x86
Upstream fixes
The versions the CNA records as introducing and fixing this, and the commit for each. source
| Introduced | Fixed in | Commit |
|---|---|---|
| 6.11 | 6.18.57 | ef4dee4640c6 |
| 6.11 | 7.2.5 | 2640cc26ed0d |
| 6.11 | 7.3 | d1a3c2162334 |
Why the CNA scored it this way
The kernel CNA published no CVSS vector and no reasoning for CVE-2026-90040, which is why it is shown as unrated rather than given an invented score. 6,405 of the 20,413 CVEs here carry reasoning; this is not one of them.