CVE-2017-10915
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedThe shadow-paging feature in Xen through 4.8.x mismanages page references and consequently introduces a race condition, which allows guest OS users to obtain Xen privileges, aka XSA-219.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceA race condition exists in Xen's shadow-paging feature (used for hardware-assisted virtualization without nested page tables) due to mismanagement of page references. This allows a malicious guest OS user to escape guest isolation and escalate privileges to the Xen hypervisor level.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data<= 4.8.1CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- High
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Changed
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify Xen hypervisor versionRun `xl version` or `xm version` to display the installed Xen version, or check the package version with `rpm -q xen` (RHEL/CentOS) or `dpkg -l xen*` (Debian/Ubuntu)Affected if The reported version is 4.8.1 or lower
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Locate guest configuration filesList all .cfg files in /etc/xen/ (or the directory containing your guest definitions) to identify all defined virtual machinesAffected if One or more guest configuration files exist
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Determine if shadow paging is enabledFor each guest configuration file, search for the `hap` setting (hardware-assisted paging). If `hap = 0` is present, that guest uses shadow paging. Also check for `shadow_memory` settings which indicate shadow mode usageAffected if Any guest has `hap = 0` set or explicitly uses shadow paging mode
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Identify running guests using shadow pagingRun `xl list -l <guest_name>` for each guest and inspect the `hap` field in the output; a value of 0 indicates shadow paging is active for that running guestAffected if Any running guest shows hap state as 0 (shadow mode active)
You are affected if your Xen version is 4.8.1 or lower AND at least one guest VM is configured to use or is actively using shadow paging (hap = 0) instead of hardware-assisted paging.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
dbcve · scopedUpgrade Xen to version 4.9.x or later to receive the patch for XSA-219; alternatively, apply vendor-provided security patches for Xen 4.8.x and earlier versions.
Xen 4.9.0 or later (e.g., 4.9.1, 4.10.x, 4.11.x)
- Upgrade Xen to version 4.9.0 or later to resolve the shadow-paging race condition (XSA-219)
- If running a distribution package (Debian, Gentoo, etc.), apply the vendor-provided security patch for this CVE
- After upgrading, verify the hypervisor version matches the expected fixed version using 'xl version' or 'xm version'
- Reboot the host after applying the hypervisor upgrade to load the patched version
- Confirm the guest domains start successfully post-reboot
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
- Consultation8.0 h
- Implementation16.0 h
- Testing16.0 h
- Review / QA4.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2017-10915 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2017-10915 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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