CVE-2024-47744 — KVM: Use dedicated mutex to protect kvm_usage_count to avoid deadlock

2026-09-29T07:08:54.939273+00:00

Affected: Linux

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

KVM: Use dedicated mutex to protect kvm_usage_count to avoid deadlock

Use a dedicated mutex to guard kvm_usage_count to fix a potential deadlock on x86 due to a chain of locks and SRCU synchronizations. Translating the below lockdep splat, CPU1 #6 will wait on CPU0 #1, CPU0 #8 will wait on CPU2 #3, and CPU2 #7 will wait on CPU1 #4 (if there's a writer, due to the fairness of r/w semaphores).

CPU0 CPU1 CPU2 1 lock(&kvm->slots_lock); 2 lock(&vcpu->mutex); 3 lock(&kvm->srcu); 4 lock(cpu_hotplug_lock); 5 lock(kvm_lock); 6 lock(&kvm->slots_lock); 7 lock(cpu_hotplug_lock); 8 sync(&kvm->srcu);

Note, there are likely more potential deadlocks in KVM x86, e.g. the same pattern of taking cpu_hotplug_lock outside of kvm_lock likely exists with __kvmclock_cpufreq_notifier():

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CVE-2024-47744 — KVM: Use dedicated mutex to protect kvm_usage_count to avoid deadlock