CVE-2023-53134 bnxt_en: Avoid order-5 memory allocation for TPA data
A memory allocation failure in the bnxt_en network driver can cause a denial of service by triggering a page allocation failure during interface initialization.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2023-53134?
CVE-2023-53134 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 2 May 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
bnxt_en: Avoid order-5 memory allocation for TPA data
The driver needs to keep track of all the possible concurrent TPA (GRO/LRO) completions on the aggregation ring. On P5 chips, the maximum number of concurrent TPA is 256 and the amount of memory we allocate is order-5 on systems using 4K pages. Memory allocation failure has been reported:
NetworkManager: page allocation failure: order:5, mode:0x40dc0(GFP_KERNEL|__GFP_COMP|__GFP_ZERO), nodemask=(null),cpuset=/,mems_allowed=0-1 CPU: 15 PID: 2995 Comm: NetworkManager Kdump: loaded Not tainted 5.10.156 #1 Hardware name: Dell Inc. PowerEdge R660/0M1CC5, BIOS 0.2.25 08/12/2022 Call Trace: dump_stack+0x57/0x6e warn_alloc.cold.120+0x7b/0xdd ? _cond_resched+0x15/0x30 ? __alloc_pages_direct_compact+0x15f/0x170 __alloc_pages_slowpath.constprop.108+0xc58/0xc70 __alloc_pages_nodemask+0x2d0/0x300 kmalloc_order+0x24/0xe0 kmalloc_order_trace+0x19/0x80 bnxt_alloc_mem+0x1150/0x15c0 [bnxt_en] ? bnxt_get_func_stat_ctxs+0x13/0x60 [bnxt_en] __bnxt_open_nic+0x12e/0x780 [bnxt_en] bnxt_open+0x10b/0x240 [bnxt_en] __dev_open+0xe9/0x180 __dev_change_flags+0x1af/0x220 dev_change_flags+0x21/0x60 do_setlink+0x35c/0x1100
Instead of allocating this big chunk of memory and dividing it up for the concurrent TPA instances, allocate each small chunk separately for each TPA instance. This will reduce it to order-0 allocations.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53134?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2023-53134?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2023-53134 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53134 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-53134, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53134, GHSA-9rrf-mxq4-m863, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53134.