In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/mm: Fix user-space data loss with MADV_FREE and THP Some of users of Polars (a data analytics library) have lost production data from this bug

Overview

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

x86/mm: Fix user-space data loss with MADV_FREE and THP

Some of users of Polars (a data analytics library) have lost production data from this bug. They seem to have just the right combination of huge pages, MADV_FREE and heavy reclaim pressure.

pmd_modify() masks the old value with (_HPAGE_CHG_MASK & ~_PAGE_DIRTY), silently discarding the hardware dirty bit. The subsequent pmd_mksaveddirty() call is supposed to transfer _PAGE_DIRTY into _PAGE_SAVED_DIRTY when write-protecting, but the dirty bit was already stripped from the value, so there is nothing left to transfer.

Contrast with pte_modify(), which keeps _PAGE_DIRTY_BITS in its mask, and pud_modify(), which keeps _HPAGE_CHG_MASK untouched: pmd_modify() is the odd one out. Any pmd_modify() on a writable, dirty PMD loses the dirty state.

One visible consequence is data loss with MADV_FREE on PMD-mapped THP:

memset(buf, 0x5A, size);          // PMD-mapped THP, PMD dirty
madvise(buf, size, MADV_FREE);    // PMD cleaned but left writable,
                                  // folio marked lazyfree
memset(buf, 0x5A, size);          // hardware sets _PAGE_DIRTY again
mprotect(buf, size, PROT_READ);   // pmd_modify() drops the dirty bit
mprotect(buf, size, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE);
// ... memory pressure ...

Reclaim (e.g. under memcg pressure) then finds the lazyfree folio with no dirty bit set anywhere and frees it in __discard_anon_folio_pmd_locked(), even though the data was rewritten after MADV_FREE; subsequent reads fault in fresh zero pages. NUMA hinting alone can trigger the same loss, as do_huge_pmd_numa_page() restores the PMD through pmd_modify() as well.

PMD-mapped file THPs are affected too: mprotect()/NUMA hinting dropping the dirty bit means rewritten data is never written back.

Fix it by keeping _PAGE_DIRTY in the preserved mask, exactly like pte_modify() and pud_modify() do. The existing pmd_mksaveddirty()/pmd_clear_saveddirty() pair then performs the hardware-dirty <-> saved-dirty transition based on the write bit, preserving the shadow-stack encoding rules.

Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.

Vendor advisories

• Red Hat VEX · Moderate · affected: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 · no fix planned: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 · updated 2026-10-17 · vex