Vulnerability · Published Dec 24, 2025 · Assigned by Linux

CVE-2022-50738vhost-vdpa: fix an iotlb memory leak

Unrated

In plain English

A security flaw in Linux from Linux. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.2% (higher than 15% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.

Severity (CVSS )–Not rated
Exploit odds (30 days)0.2%top 85.5% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsnot in CISA KEV
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: vhost-vdpa: fix an iotlb memory leak Before commit 3d5698793897 ("vhost-vdpa: introduce asid based IOTLB") we called vhost_vdpa_iotlb_unmap(v, iotlb, 0ULL, 0ULL - 1) during release to free all the resources allocated when processing user IOTLB messages through vhost_vdpa_process_iotlb_update(). That commit changed the handling of IOTLB a bit, and we accidentally removed some code called during the release. We partially fixed this with commit 037d4305569a ("vhost-vdpa: call vhost_vdpa_cleanup during the release") but a potential memory leak is still there as showed by kmemleak if the application does not send VHOST_IOTLB_INVALIDATE or crashes: unreferenced object 0xffff888007fbaa30 (size 16): comm "blkio-bench", pid 914, jiffies 4294993521 (age 885.500s) hex dump (first 16 bytes): 40 73 41 07 80 88 ff ff 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 @sA............. backtrace: [<0000000087736d2a>] kmem_cache_alloc_trace+0x142/0x1c0 [<0000000060740f50>] vhost_vdpa_process_iotlb_msg+0x68c/0x901 [vhost_vdpa] [<0000000083e8e205>] vhost_chr_write_iter+0xc0/0x4a0 [vhost] [<000000008f2f414a>] vhost_vdpa_chr_write_iter+0x18/0x20 [vhost_vdpa] [<00000000de1cd4a0>] vfs_write+0x216/0x4b0 [<00000000a2850200>] ksys_write+0x71/0xf0 [<00000000de8e720b>] __x64_sys_write+0x19/0x20 [<0000000018b12cbb>] do_syscall_64+0x3f/0x90 [<00000000986ec465>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd Let's fix this calling vhost_vdpa_iotlb_unmap() on the whole range in vhost_vdpa_remove_as(). We move that call before vhost_dev_cleanup() since we need a valid v->vdev.mm in vhost_vdpa_pa_unmap(). vhost_iotlb_reset() call can be removed, since vhost_vdpa_iotlb_unmap() on the whole range removes all the entries. The kmemleak log reported was observed with a vDPA device that has `use_va` set to true (e.g. VDUSE). This patch has been tested with both types of devices.

Affected packages & fixed versions

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian:12linux6.1.7-1DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50738
Debian:13linux6.1.7-1DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50738
Debian:14linux6.1.7-1DEBIAN-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-allwinner-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-azure-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fde-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fde-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-gcp-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-hwe-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-intel-iot-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-5.17no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.0no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.1no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.8no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oracle-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-raspi-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscvno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-riscvno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscv-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-riscv-6.14no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscv-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2022-50738

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
Linux Linux 3d5698793897a2b9c0060d899881d1a0591630d5 – before 4e92cb33bfb51eee5f28bb10846c46f266a4bb673d5698793897a2b9c0060d899881d1a0591630d5 – before a2907867e2c86067accd2f011d6f23ee5533aa6c3d5698793897a2b9c0060d899881d1a0591630d5 – before c070c1912a83432530cbb4271d5b9b11fa36b67a
Linux Linux 5.19

References