CVE-2025-21895 perf/core: Order the PMU list to fix warning about unordered pmu_ctx_list

What is CVE-2025-21895?

CVE-2025-21895 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 Apr 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:

perf/core: Order the PMU list to fix warning about unordered pmu_ctx_list

Syskaller triggers a warning due to prev_epc->pmu != next_epc->pmu in perf_event_swap_task_ctx_data(). vmcore shows that two lists have the same perf_event_pmu_context, but not in the same order.

The problem is that the order of pmu_ctx_list for the parent is impacted by the time when an event/PMU is added. While the order for a child is impacted by the event order in the pinned_groups and flexible_groups. So the order of pmu_ctx_list in the parent and child may be different.

To fix this problem, insert the perf_event_pmu_context to its proper place after iteration of the pmu_ctx_list.

The follow testcase can trigger above warning:

# perf record -e cycles --call-graph lbr -- taskset -c 3 ./a.out & # perf stat -e cpu-clock,cs -p xxx // xxx is the pid of a.out

test.c

void main() { int count = 0; pid_t pid;

printf("%d running\n", getpid()); sleep(30); printf("running\n");

pid = fork(); if (pid == -1) { printf("fork error\n"); return; } if (pid == 0) { while (1) { count++; } } else { while (1) { count++; } } }

The testcase first opens an LBR event, so it will allocate task_ctx_data, and then open tracepoint and software events, so the parent context will have 3 different perf_event_pmu_contexts. On inheritance, child ctx will insert the perf_event_pmu_context in another order and the warning will trigger.

[ mingo: Tidied up the changelog. ]

Weakness: CWE-362

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-21895?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2025-21895?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2025-21895 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-21895 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-21895, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-21895, GHSA-jvvm-77gw-35g5, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-21895, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-21895.