# CVE-2025-21732: RDMA/mlx5: Fix a race for an ODP MR which leads to CQE with error

> A race condition in the Linux kernel RDMA mlx5 driver can cause a Queue Pair error, leading to a denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 4.7 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **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:** Yes
- **Published:** 27 Feb 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-62669, AZL-68967, BELL-CVE-2025-21732, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-21732, GHSA-pvrm-6wq8-v932, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-21732, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2025-21732, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-21732, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-21732

## What is CVE-2025-21732?

CVE-2025-21732 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 27 Feb 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:

RDMA/mlx5: Fix a race for an ODP MR which leads to CQE with error

This patch addresses a race condition for an ODP MR that can result in a
CQE with an error on the UMR QP.

During the __mlx5_ib_dereg_mr() flow, the following sequence of calls
occurs:

mlx5_revoke_mr()
 mlx5r_umr_revoke_mr()
 mlx5r_umr_post_send_wait()

At this point, the lkey is freed from the hardware's perspective.

However, concurrently, mlx5_ib_invalidate_range() might be triggered by
another task attempting to invalidate a range for the same freed lkey.

This task will:
 - Acquire the umem_odp->umem_mutex lock.
 - Call mlx5r_umr_update_xlt() on the UMR QP.
 - Since the lkey has already been freed, this can lead to a CQE error,
   causing the UMR QP to enter an error state [1].

To resolve this race condition, the umem_odp->umem_mutex lock is now also
acquired as part of the mlx5_revoke_mr() scope.  Upon successful revoke,
we set umem_odp->private which points to that MR to NULL, preventing any
further invalidation attempts on its lkey.

[1] From dmesg:

   infiniband rocep8s0f0: dump_cqe:277:(pid 0): WC error: 6, Message: memory bind operation error
   cqe_dump: 00000000: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
   cqe_dump: 00000010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
   cqe_dump: 00000020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
   cqe_dump: 00000030: 00 00 00 00 08 00 78 06 25 00 11 b9 00 0e dd d2

   WARNING: CPU: 15 PID: 1506 at drivers/infiniband/hw/mlx5/umr.c:394 mlx5r_umr_post_send_wait+0x15a/0x2b0 [mlx5_ib]
   Modules linked in: ip6table_mangle ip6table_natip6table_filter ip6_tables iptable_mangle xt_conntrack xt_MASQUERADE nf_conntrack_netlink nfnetlink xt_addrtype iptable_nat nf_nat br_netfilter rpcsec_gss_krb5 auth_rpcgss oid_registry overlay rpcrdma rdma_ucm ib_iser libiscsi scsi_transport_iscsi rdma_cm iw_cm ib_umad ib_ipoib ib_cm mlx5_ib ib_uverbs ib_core fuse mlx5_core
   CPU: 15 UID: 0 PID: 1506 Comm: ibv_rc_pingpong Not tainted 6.12.0-rc7+ #1626
   Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS rel-1.13.0-0-gf21b5a4aeb02-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014
   RIP: 0010:mlx5r_umr_post_send_wait+0x15a/0x2b0 [mlx5_ib]
   [..]
   Call Trace:
   <TASK>
   mlx5r_umr_update_xlt+0x23c/0x3e0 [mlx5_ib]
   mlx5_ib_invalidate_range+0x2e1/0x330 [mlx5_ib]
   __mmu_notifier_invalidate_range_start+0x1e1/0x240
   zap_page_range_single+0xf1/0x1a0
   madvise_vma_behavior+0x677/0x6e0
   do_madvise+0x1a2/0x4b0
   __x64_sys_madvise+0x25/0x30
   do_syscall_64+0x6b/0x140
   entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e

Weakness: CWE-362 (Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-21732?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-21732?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-21732 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-21732 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-21732 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-21732 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 27 Feb 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-21732 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-21732/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-21732/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-21732
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-21732
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-21732

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-21732/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.
