CVE-2023-54070 igb: clean up in all error paths when enabling SR-IOV
Local privileged users can cause a system hang or crash by removing the igb kernel module when SR-IOV is enabled.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- An administrator
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2023-54070?
CVE-2023-54070 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 24 Dec 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:
igb: clean up in all error paths when enabling SR-IOV
After commit 50f303496d92 ("igb: Enable SR-IOV after reinit"), removing the igb module could hang or crash (depending on the machine) when the module has been loaded with the max_vfs parameter set to some value != 0.
In case of one test machine with a dual port 82580, this hang occurred:
[ 232.480687] igb 0000:41:00.1: removed PHC on enp65s0f1 [ 233.093257] igb 0000:41:00.1: IOV Disabled [ 233.329969] pcieport 0000:40:01.0: AER: Multiple Uncorrected (Non-Fatal) err0 [ 233.340302] igb 0000:41:00.0: PCIe Bus Error: severity=Uncorrected (Non-Fata) [ 233.352248] igb 0000:41:00.0: device [8086:1516] error status/mask=00100000 [ 233.361088] igb 0000:41:00.0: [20] UnsupReq (First) [ 233.368183] igb 0000:41:00.0: AER: TLP Header: 40000001 0000040f cdbfc00c c [ 233.376846] igb 0000:41:00.1: PCIe Bus Error: severity=Uncorrected (Non-Fata) [ 233.388779] igb 0000:41:00.1: device [8086:1516] error status/mask=00100000 [ 233.397629] igb 0000:41:00.1: [20] UnsupReq (First) [ 233.404736] igb 0000:41:00.1: AER: TLP Header: 40000001 0000040f cdbfc00c c [ 233.538214] pci 0000:41:00.1: AER: can't recover (no error_detected callback) [ 233.538401] igb 0000:41:00.0: removed PHC on enp65s0f0 [ 233.546197] pcieport 0000:40:01.0: AER: device recovery failed [ 234.157244] igb 0000:41:00.0: IOV Disabled [ 371.619705] INFO: task irq/35-aerdrv:257 blocked for more than 122 seconds. [ 371.627489] Not tainted 6.4.0-dirty #2 [ 371.632257] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this. [ 371.641000] task:irq/35-aerdrv state:D stack:0 pid:257 ppid:2 f0 [ 371.650330] Call Trace: [ 371.653061] <TASK> [ 371.655407] __schedule+0x20e/0x660 [ 371.659313] schedule+0x5a/0xd0 [ 371.662824] schedule_preempt_disabled+0x11/0x20 [ 371.667983] __mutex_lock.constprop.0+0x372/0x6c0 [ 371.673237] ? __pfx_aer_root_reset+0x10/0x10 [ 371.678105] report_error_detected+0x25/0x1c0 [ 371.682974] ? __pfx_report_normal_detected+0x10/0x10 [ 371.688618] pci_walk_bus+0x72/0x90 [ 371.692519] pcie_do_recovery+0xb2/0x330 [ 371.696899] aer_process_err_devices+0x117/0x170 [ 371.702055] aer_isr+0x1c0/0x1e0 [ 371.705661] ? __set_cpus_allowed_ptr+0x54/0xa0 [ 371.710723] ? __pfx_irq_thread_fn+0x10/0x10 [ 371.715496] irq_thread_fn+0x20/0x60 [ 371.719491] irq_thread+0xe6/0x1b0 [ 371.723291] ? __pfx_irq_thread_dtor+0x10/0x10 [ 371.728255] ? __pfx_irq_thread+0x10/0x10 [ 371.732731] kthread+0xe2/0x110 [ 371.736243] ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10 [ 371.740430] ret_from_fork+0x2c/0x50 [ 371.744428] </TASK>
The reproducer was a simple script:
#!/bin/sh for i in `seq 1 5`; do modprobe -rv igb modprobe -v igb max_vfs=1 sleep 1 modprobe -rv igb done
It turned out that this could only be reproduce on 82580 (quad and dual-port), but not on 82576, i350 and i210. Further debugging showed that igb_enable_sriov()'s call to pci_enable_sriov() is failing, because dev->is_physfn is 0 on 82580.
Prior to commit 50f303496d92 ("igb: Enable SR-IOV after reinit"), igb_enable_sriov() jumped into the "err_out" cleanup branch. After this commit it only returned the error code.
So the cleanup didn't take place, and the incorrect VF setup in the igb_adapter structure fooled the igb driver into assuming that VFs have been set up where no VF actually existed.
Fix this problem by cleaning up again if pci_enable_sriov() fails.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-54070?
How do I fix CVE-2023-54070?
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-2023-54070 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-54070 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-54070, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-54070, GHSA-j844-9pmv-wmhv, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54070.