CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2021-46970 — Linux Linux Kernel security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 5.5

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bus: mhi: pci_generic: Remove WQ_MEM_RECLAIM flag from state workqueue A recent change created a dedicated workqueue for the state-change work with WQ_HIGHPRI (no strong reason for that) and WQ_MEM_RECLAIM flags, but the state-change work (mhi_pm_st_worker) does not guarantee forward progress under memory pressure, and will even wait on various memory allocations when e.g. creating devices, loading firmware, etc... The work is then not part of a memory reclaim path... Moreover, this causes a warning in check_flush_dependency() since we end up in code that flushes a non-reclaim workqueue: [ 40.969601] workqueue: WQ_MEM_RECLAIM mhi_hiprio_wq:mhi_pm_st_worker [mhi] is flushing !WQ_MEM_RECLAIM events_highpri:flush_backlog [ 40.969612] WARNING: CPU: 4 PID: 158 at kernel/workqueue.c:2607 check_flush_dependency+0x11c/0x140 [ 40.969733] Call Trace: [ 40.969740] __flush_work+0x97/0x1d0 [ 40.969745] ? wake_up_process+0x15/0x20 [ 40.969749] ? insert_work+0x70/0x80 [ 40.969750] ? __queue_work+0x14a/0x3e0 [ 40.969753] flush_work+0x10/0x20 [ 40.969756] rollback_registered_many+0x1c9/0x510 [ 40.969759] unregister_netdevice_queue…

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.5 (3.1)
Published
2024-02-27
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
linux/kernel

Affected products

  • linux / linux_kernel

Showing 1 representative product identities from 2 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

General vulnerability remediation

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Check exposure

  • Confirm the affected component, deployment paths, reachable interfaces, and enabled features from inventories and configuration, without probing production destructively.
  • Compare the advisory's affected conditions with the repository lockfiles, build manifests, artifacts, and runtime inventory.
  • Identify data sensitivity, trust boundaries, and privilege level for every confirmed affected deployment.

Remediate safely

  • Apply a vendor-supported fix or remove the affected component or feature; record the selected change and its source in the repository.
  • Update direct and transitive dependency locks, generated artifacts, deployment manifests, and asset inventories together.
  • Add a regression test for the documented unsafe condition using inert inputs and preserve rollback instructions.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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