{"id":"CVE-2021-47092","details":"In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\nKVM: VMX: Always clear vmx-\u003efail on emulation_required\n\nRevert a relatively recent change that set vmx-\u003efail if the vCPU is in L2\nand emulation_required is true, as that behavior is completely bogus.\nSetting vmx-\u003efail and synthesizing a VM-Exit is contradictory and wrong:\n\n  (a) it's impossible to have both a VM-Fail and VM-Exit\n  (b) vmcs.EXIT_REASON is not modified on VM-Fail\n  (c) emulation_required refers to guest state and guest state checks are\n      always VM-Exits, not VM-Fails.\n\nFor KVM specifically, emulation_required is handled before nested exits\nin __vmx_handle_exit(), thus setting vmx-\u003efail has no immediate effect,\ni.e. KVM calls into handle_invalid_guest_state() and vmx-\u003efail is ignored.\nSetting vmx-\u003efail can ultimately result in a WARN in nested_vmx_vmexit()\nfiring when tearing down the VM as KVM never expects vmx-\u003efail to be set\nwhen L2 is active, KVM always reflects those errors into L1.\n\n  ------------[ cut here ]------------\n  WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 21158 at arch/x86/kvm/vmx/nested.c:4548\n                                nested_vmx_vmexit+0x16bd/0x17e0\n                                arch/x86/kvm/vmx/nested.c:4547\n  Modules linked in:\n  CPU: 0 PID: 21158 Comm: syz-executor.1 Not tainted 5.16.0-rc3-syzkaller #0\n  Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 01/01/2011\n  RIP: 0010:nested_vmx_vmexit+0x16bd/0x17e0 arch/x86/kvm/vmx/nested.c:4547\n  Code: \u003c0f\u003e 0b e9 2e f8 ff ff e8 57 b3 5d 00 0f 0b e9 00 f1 ff ff 89 e9 80\n  Call Trace:\n   vmx_leave_nested arch/x86/kvm/vmx/nested.c:6220 [inline]\n   nested_vmx_free_vcpu+0x83/0xc0 arch/x86/kvm/vmx/nested.c:330\n   vmx_free_vcpu+0x11f/0x2a0 arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c:6799\n   kvm_arch_vcpu_destroy+0x6b/0x240 arch/x86/kvm/x86.c:10989\n   kvm_vcpu_destroy+0x29/0x90 arch/x86/kvm/../../../virt/kvm/kvm_main.c:441\n   kvm_free_vcpus arch/x86/kvm/x86.c:11426 [inline]\n   kvm_arch_destroy_vm+0x3ef/0x6b0 arch/x86/kvm/x86.c:11545\n   kvm_destroy_vm arch/x86/kvm/../../../virt/kvm/kvm_main.c:1189 [inline]\n   kvm_put_kvm+0x751/0xe40 arch/x86/kvm/../../../virt/kvm/kvm_main.c:1220\n   kvm_vcpu_release+0x53/0x60 arch/x86/kvm/../../../virt/kvm/kvm_main.c:3489\n   __fput+0x3fc/0x870 fs/file_table.c:280\n   task_work_run+0x146/0x1c0 kernel/task_work.c:164\n   exit_task_work include/linux/task_work.h:32 [inline]\n   do_exit+0x705/0x24f0 kernel/exit.c:832\n   do_group_exit+0x168/0x2d0 kernel/exit.c:929\n   get_signal+0x1740/0x2120 kernel/signal.c:2852\n   arch_do_signal_or_restart+0x9c/0x730 arch/x86/kernel/signal.c:868\n   handle_signal_work kernel/entry/common.c:148 [inline]\n   exit_to_user_mode_loop kernel/entry/common.c:172 [inline]\n   exit_to_user_mode_prepare+0x191/0x220 kernel/entry/common.c:207\n   __syscall_exit_to_user_mode_work kernel/entry/common.c:289 [inline]\n   syscall_exit_to_user_mode+0x2e/0x70 kernel/entry/common.c:300\n   do_syscall_64+0x53/0xd0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:86\n   entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae","modified":"2026-03-14T11:18:56.897312Z","published":"2024-03-04T18:15:07.723Z","references":[{"type":"FIX","url":"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a80dfc025924024d2c61a4c1b8ef62b2fce76a04"},{"type":"FIX","url":"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e4e4e7cb229821cd215031abc47efdab5486a67c"}],"affected":[{"database_specific":{"source":"https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2021-47092.json","unresolved_ranges":[{"events":[{"introduced":"5.15"},{"fixed":"5.15.12"}]},{"events":[{"introduced":"0"},{"last_affected":"5.16-rc1"}]},{"events":[{"introduced":"0"},{"last_affected":"5.16-rc2"}]},{"events":[{"introduced":"0"},{"last_affected":"5.16-rc3"}]},{"events":[{"introduced":"0"},{"last_affected":"5.16-rc4"}]},{"events":[{"introduced":"0"},{"last_affected":"5.16-rc5"}]},{"events":[{"introduced":"0"},{"last_affected":"5.16-rc6"}]}]}}],"schema_version":"1.7.5","severity":[{"type":"CVSS_V3","score":"CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H"}]}