CVE-2024-42316: mm/mglru: fix div-by-zero in vmpressure_calc_level()

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2024-42316 is a medium (CVSS 5.5) Divide By Zero vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.21% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 11.2% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 17-08-2024
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 11-05-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/mglru: fix div-by-zero in vmpressure_calc_level() evict_folios() uses a second pass to reclaim folios that have gone through page writeback and become clean before it finishes the first pass, since folio_rotate_reclaimable() cannot handle those folios due to the isolation. The second pass tries to avoid potential double counting by deducting scan_control->nr_scanned. However, this can result in underflow of nr_scanned, under a condition where shrink_folio_list() does not increment nr_scanned, i.e., when folio_trylock() fails. The underflow can cause the divisor, i.e., scale=scanned+reclaimed in vmpressure_calc_level(), to become zero, resulting in the following crash: [exception RIP: vmpressure_work_fn+101] process_one_work at ffffffffa3313f2b Since scan_control->nr_scanned has no established semantics, the potential double counting has minimal risks. Therefore, fix the problem by not deducting scan_control->nr_scanned in evict_folios().

• CWE-369Divide By ZeroThe product divides a value by zero.