# CVE-2025-21953: net: mana: cleanup mana struct after debugfs_remove() > A null pointer dereference in the Linux kernel MANA network driver during hibernation resume failures can cause a system crash. - **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/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:** 1 Apr 2025 - **Updated:** 11 May 2026 - **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2025-21953, GHSA-j97h-5fwv-4rhj, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-21953 ## What is CVE-2025-21953? CVE-2025-21953 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: net: mana: cleanup mana struct after debugfs_remove() When on a MANA VM hibernation is triggered, as part of hibernate_snapshot(), mana_gd_suspend() and mana_gd_resume() are called. If during this mana_gd_resume(), a failure occurs with HWC creation, mana_port_debugfs pointer does not get reinitialized and ends up pointing to older, cleaned-up dentry. Further in the hibernation path, as part of power_down(), mana_gd_shutdown() is triggered. This call, unaware of the failures in resume, tries to cleanup the already cleaned up mana_port_debugfs value and hits the following bug: [ 191.359296] mana 7870:00:00.0: Shutdown was called [ 191.359918] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000098 [ 191.360584] #PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode [ 191.361125] #PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page [ 191.361727] PGD 1080ea067 P4D 0 [ 191.362172] Oops: Oops: 0002 [#1] SMP NOPTI [ 191.362606] CPU: 11 UID: 0 PID: 1674 Comm: bash Not tainted 6.14.0-rc5+ #2 [ 191.363292] Hardware name: Microsoft Corporation Virtual Machine/Virtual Machine, BIOS Hyper-V UEFI Release v4.1 11/21/2024 [ 191.364124] RIP: 0010:down_write+0x19/0x50 [ 191.364537] Code: 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 0f 1f 44 00 00 55 48 89 e5 53 48 89 fb e8 de cd ff ff 31 c0 ba 01 00 00 00 48 0f b1 13 75 16 65 48 8b 05 88 24 4c 6a 48 89 43 08 48 8b 5d [ 191.365867] RSP: 0000:ff45fbe0c1c037b8 EFLAGS: 00010246 [ 191.366350] RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 0000000000000098 RCX: ffffff8100000000 [ 191.366951] RDX: 0000000000000001 RSI: 0000000000000064 RDI: 0000000000000098 [ 191.367600] RBP: ff45fbe0c1c037c0 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000001 [ 191.368225] R10: ff45fbe0d2b01000 R11: 0000000000000008 R12: 0000000000000000 [ 191.368874] R13: 000000000000000b R14: ff43dc27509d67c0 R15: 0000000000000020 [ 191.369549] FS: 00007dbc5001e740(0000) GS:ff43dc663f380000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 191.370213] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 191.370830] CR2: 0000000000000098 CR3: 0000000168e8e002 CR4: 0000000000b73ef0 [ 191.371557] DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 [ 191.372192] DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe07f0 DR7: 0000000000000400 [ 191.372906] Call Trace: [ 191.373262] [ 191.373621] ? show_regs+0x64/0x70 [ 191.374040] ? __die+0x24/0x70 [ 191.374468] ? page_fault_oops+0x290/0x5b0 [ 191.374875] ? do_user_addr_fault+0x448/0x800 [ 191.375357] ? exc_page_fault+0x7a/0x160 [ 191.375971] ? asm_exc_page_fault+0x27/0x30 [ 191.376416] ? down_write+0x19/0x50 [ 191.376832] ? down_write+0x12/0x50 [ 191.377232] simple_recursive_removal+0x4a/0x2a0 [ 191.377679] ? __pfx_remove_one+0x10/0x10 [ 191.378088] debugfs_remove+0x44/0x70 [ 191.378530] mana_detach+0x17c/0x4f0 [ 191.378950] ? __flush_work+0x1e2/0x3b0 [ 191.379362] ? __cond_resched+0x1a/0x50 [ 191.379787] mana_remove+0xf2/0x1a0 [ 191.380193] mana_gd_shutdown+0x3b/0x70 [ 191.380642] pci_device_shutdown+0x3a/0x80 [ 191.381063] device_shutdown+0x13e/0x230 [ 191.381480] kernel_power_off+0x35/0x80 [ 191.381890] hibernate+0x3c6/0x470 [ 191.382312] state_store+0xcb/0xd0 [ 191.382734] kobj_attr_store+0x12/0x30 [ 191.383211] sysfs_kf_write+0x3e/0x50 [ 191.383640] kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x140/0x1d0 [ 191.384106] vfs_write+0x271/0x440 [ 191.384521] ksys_write+0x72/0xf0 [ 191.384924] __x64_sys_write+0x19/0x20 [ 191.385313] x64_sys_call+0x2b0/0x20b0 [ 191.385736] do_syscall_64+0x79/0x150 [ 191.386146] ? __mod_memcg_lruvec_state+0xe7/0x240 [ 191.386676] ? __lruvec_stat_mod_folio+0x79/0xb0 [ 191.387124] ? __pfx_lru_add+0x10/0x10 [ 191.387515] ? queued_spin_unlock+0x9/0x10 [ 191.387937] ? do_anonymous_page+0x33c/0xa00 [ 191.388374] ? __handle_mm_fault+0xcf3/0x1210 [ 191.388805] ? __count_memcg_events+0xbe/0x180 [ 191.389235] ? handle_mm_fault+0xae/0x300 [ 19 ---truncated--- Weakness: CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference) ## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-21953? It affects 1 product. Products: Linux kernel. ## How do I fix CVE-2025-21953? Apply the vendor's patch. ## Is CVE-2025-21953 being exploited? There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-21953 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-2025-21953 and fix it if it is affected. What it is: CVE-2025-21953 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. Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-21953 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-2025-21953/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-21953/index.md) ``` ## Sources - CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-21953 - NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-21953 - OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-21953 --- From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-21953/ Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.