Executive brief
A technical issue was identified in the Linux kernel's memory management system. Under specific configurations where system swapping is disabled but memory migration or failure handling is enabled, the system could incorrectly report memory pages as missing and trigger internal warning messages. This primarily affects system stability and the accuracy of memory reporting rather than direct data security.
Technical details
A logic error existed in mm/mincore.c where the !IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_SWAP) guard was placed before the check for non-swap entries (such as migration or hwpoison entries). On kernels compiled without swap support but with CONFIG_MIGRATION or CONFIG_MEMORY_FAILURE enabled, mincore_pte_range() would trigger a WARN_ON and incorrectly report pages as nonresident. The fix reorders the checks so that migration and hardware poison entries are processed correctly before the swap-specific guard is reached. This issue is resolved in stable kernel branches 6.18.36, 7.0.13, and 7.1.
Affected products
- Linux Linux 6.18, 7.0, 7.1
Timeline
- 2026-07-01: advisory: NVD publication date
- 2026-06-03: patched: Initial fix committed to Linux kernel tree