In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: Fix BPF_F_CPU validation for sparse CPU IDs BPF_F_CPU stores the target CPU ID in the upper 32 bits of the map operation flags

Overview

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

bpf: Fix BPF_F_CPU validation for sparse CPU IDs

BPF_F_CPU stores the target CPU ID in the upper 32 bits of the map operation flags. bpf_map_check_op_flags() currently compares that ID with num_possible_cpus(), which is the number of possible CPUs rather than a bound on CPU IDs.

On an arm64 QEMU guest with a CPU device-tree hole, the possible CPU mask was 0,2-3. A userspace program using raw bpf() syscalls creates a BPF_MAP_TYPE_PERCPU_ARRAY and performs update and lookup operations for each CPU by setting BPF_F_CPU and the CPU ID in the flags.

With the old check, CPU 1 is incorrectly accepted while valid CPU 3 is rejected with -ERANGE. The CPU 1 update then reaches the per-CPU map access path and triggers:

Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address ... pc : __pi_memcpy_generic+0x5c/0x22c lr : bpf_percpu_array_update+0x2dc/0x2e8 Call trace: __pi_memcpy_generic bpf_map_update_value map_update_elem __sys_bpf

Check the CPU ID against nr_cpu_ids and cpu_possible() instead. This rejects CPU IDs outside the valid range and CPUs absent from the possible mask, while allowing valid sparse CPU IDs.

Remediation

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

Vendor advisories

• Red Hat VEX · Moderate · updated 2026-09-28 · vex