High [CVE-2026-74674] fix incorrect flush address in direct page table reclaim
This high-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-74674 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat package: kernel.
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Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm: fix incorrect flush address in direct page table reclaim When zap_pte_range reclaims a page table, it does: pte_free_tlb(tlb, pmd_pgtable(pmdval), addr); and this is unconditionally wrong: if this code executes, addr *always* points one past the end of the range covered by the table.
The addr parameter is used to flush the TLB (really the paging-structure-cache) to drop references to the to-be-freed table, and any architecture that cares about the parameter will flush the wrong address. (But they'll still free the correct page). I think it's worth contemplating why the kernel works at all.
If we hit the offending line of code, we will first clear the PMD entry (line 1954, zap_empty_pte_table), then we will issue pending flushes if force_flush is set (tlb_flush_mmu_tlbonly(tlb)), then we will skip the retry on line 1979 (phew!), and then we will do the offending pte_free_tlb call. *Or* we will clear the PMD entry immediately before pte_free_tlb (line 1983, zap_pte_table_if_empty).
If we have any pending flushes (i.e. we actually zapped any last-level entries) at the time we clear the PMD entry, then the flush really ought to flush all references to the table (Linus certainly seems to think it will on all architectures [0]).
Affected versions
No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative — check it before change work.
Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 2 hours ago·verify at source
Fixed versions
No fixed release is recorded yet. That does not prove no patch exists — confirm against the vendor advisory.
Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 2 hours ago·verify at source
Mitigation
The source record does not include mitigation steps. That is not a statement that no fix exists — read the vendor advisory below for the authoritative guidance.
Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 2 hours ago·verify at source
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