CVE-2025-22053 net: ibmveth: make veth_pool_store stop hanging
A race condition in the ibmveth driver allows local attackers to cause a system hang by concurrently writing to sysfs pool attributes.
- 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-2025-22053?
CVE-2025-22053 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 16 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: ibmveth: make veth_pool_store stop hanging
v2: - Created a single error handling unlock and exit in veth_pool_store - Greatly expanded commit message with previous explanatory-only text
Summary: Use rtnl_mutex to synchronize veth_pool_store with itself, ibmveth_close and ibmveth_open, preventing multiple calls in a row to napi_disable.
Background: Two (or more) threads could call veth_pool_store through writing to /sys/devices/vio/30000002/pool*/*. You can do this easily with a little shell script. This causes a hang.
I configured LOCKDEP, compiled ibmveth.c with DEBUG, and built a new kernel. I ran this test again and saw:
Setting pool0/active to 0 Setting pool1/active to 1 [ 73.911067][ T4365] ibmveth 30000002 eth0: close starting Setting pool1/active to 1 Setting pool1/active to 0 [ 73.911367][ T4366] ibmveth 30000002 eth0: close starting [ 73.916056][ T4365] ibmveth 30000002 eth0: close complete [ 73.916064][ T4365] ibmveth 30000002 eth0: open starting [ 110.808564][ T712] systemd-journald[712]: Sent WATCHDOG=1 notification. [ 230.808495][ T712] systemd-journald[712]: Sent WATCHDOG=1 notification. [ 243.683786][ T123] INFO: task stress.sh:4365 blocked for more than 122 seconds. [ 243.683827][ T123] Not tainted 6.14.0-01103-g2df0c02dab82-dirty #8 [ 243.683833][ T123] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. [ 243.683838][ T123] task:stress.sh state:D stack:28096 pid:4365 tgid:4365 ppid:4364 task_flags:0x400040 flags:0x00042000 [ 243.683852][ T123] Call Trace: [ 243.683857][ T123] [c00000000c38f690] [0000000000000001] 0x1 (unreliable) [ 243.683868][ T123] [c00000000c38f840] [c00000000001f908] __switch_to+0x318/0x4e0 [ 243.683878][ T123] [c00000000c38f8a0] [c000000001549a70] __schedule+0x500/0x12a0 [ 243.683888][ T123] [c00000000c38f9a0] [c00000000154a878] schedule+0x68/0x210 [ 243.683896][ T123] [c00000000c38f9d0] [c00000000154ac80] schedule_preempt_disabled+0x30/0x50 [ 243.683904][ T123] [c00000000c38fa00] [c00000000154dbb0] __mutex_lock+0x730/0x10f0 [ 243.683913][ T123] [c00000000c38fb10] [c000000001154d40] napi_enable+0x30/0x60 [ 243.683921][ T123] [c00000000c38fb40] [c000000000f4ae94] ibmveth_open+0x68/0x5dc [ 243.683928][ T123] [c00000000c38fbe0] [c000000000f4aa20] veth_pool_store+0x220/0x270 [ 243.683936][ T123] [c00000000c38fc70] [c000000000826278] sysfs_kf_write+0x68/0xb0 [ 243.683944][ T123] [c00000000c38fcb0] [c0000000008240b8] kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x198/0x2d0 [ 243.683951][ T123] [c00000000c38fd00] [c00000000071b9ac] vfs_write+0x34c/0x650 [ 243.683958][ T123] [c00000000c38fdc0] [c00000000071bea8] ksys_write+0x88/0x150 [ 243.683966][ T123] [c00000000c38fe10] [c0000000000317f4] system_call_exception+0x124/0x340 [ 243.683973][ T123] [c00000000c38fe50] [c00000000000d05c] system_call_vectored_common+0x15c/0x2ec ... [ 243.684087][ T123] Showing all locks held in the system: [ 243.684095][ T123] 1 lock held by khungtaskd/123: [ 243.684099][ T123] #0: c00000000278e370 (rcu_read_lock){....}-{1:2}, at: debug_show_all_locks+0x50/0x248 [ 243.684114][ T123] 4 locks held by stress.sh/4365: [ 243.684119][ T123] #0: c00000003a4cd3f8 (sb_writers#3){.+.+}-{0:0}, at: ksys_write+0x88/0x150 [ 243.684132][ T123] #1: c000000041aea888 (&of->mutex#2){+.+.}-{3:3}, at: kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x154/0x2d0 [ 243.684143][ T123] #2: c0000000366fb9a8 (kn->active#64){.+.+}-{0:0}, at: kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x160/0x2d0 [ 243.684155][ T123] #3: c000000035ff4cb8 (&dev->lock){+.+.}-{3:3}, at: napi_enable+0x30/0x60 [ 243.684166][ T123] 5 locks held by stress.sh/4366: [ 243.684170][ T123] #0: c00000003a4cd3f8 (sb_writers#3){.+.+}-{0:0}, at: ksys_write+0x88/0x150 [ 243. ---truncated---
Weakness: CWE-667
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-22053?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2025-22053?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2025-22053 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-22053 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-22053, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-22053, GHSA-59g4-mvcc-7p3x, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-22053, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-22053, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2025-22053 and 2 more.