CVE-2025-22070 fs/9p: fix NULL pointer dereference on mkdir

What is CVE-2025-22070?

CVE-2025-22070 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:

fs/9p: fix NULL pointer dereference on mkdir

When a 9p tree was mounted with option 'posixacl', parent directory had a default ACL set for its subdirectories, e.g.:

setfacl -m default:group:simpsons:rwx parentdir

then creating a subdirectory crashed 9p client, as v9fs_fid_add() call in function v9fs_vfs_mkdir_dotl() sets the passed 'fid' pointer to NULL (since dafbe689736) even though the subsequent v9fs_set_create_acl() call expects a valid non-NULL 'fid' pointer:

[ 37.273191] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000 ... [ 37.322338] Call Trace: [ 37.323043] <TASK> [ 37.323621] ? __die (arch/x86/kernel/dumpstack.c:421 arch/x86/kernel/dumpstack.c:434) [ 37.324448] ? page_fault_oops (arch/x86/mm/fault.c:714) [ 37.325532] ? search_module_extables (kernel/module/main.c:3733) [ 37.326742] ? p9_client_walk (net/9p/client.c:1165) 9pnet [ 37.328006] ? search_bpf_extables (kernel/bpf/core.c:804) [ 37.329142] ? exc_page_fault (./arch/x86/include/asm/paravirt.h:686 arch/x86/mm/fault.c:1488 arch/x86/mm/fault.c:1538) [ 37.330196] ? asm_exc_page_fault (./arch/x86/include/asm/idtentry.h:574) [ 37.331330] ? p9_client_walk (net/9p/client.c:1165) 9pnet [ 37.332562] ? v9fs_fid_xattr_get (fs/9p/xattr.c:30) 9p [ 37.333824] v9fs_fid_xattr_set (fs/9p/fid.h:23 fs/9p/xattr.c:121) 9p [ 37.335077] v9fs_set_acl (fs/9p/acl.c:276) 9p [ 37.336112] v9fs_set_create_acl (fs/9p/acl.c:307) 9p [ 37.337326] v9fs_vfs_mkdir_dotl (fs/9p/vfs_inode_dotl.c:411) 9p [ 37.338590] vfs_mkdir (fs/namei.c:4313) [ 37.339535] do_mkdirat (fs/namei.c:4336) [ 37.340465] __x64_sys_mkdir (fs/namei.c:4354) [ 37.341455] do_syscall_64 (arch/x86/entry/common.c:52 arch/x86/entry/common.c:83) [ 37.342447] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe (arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:130)

Fix this by simply swapping the sequence of these two calls in v9fs_vfs_mkdir_dotl(), i.e. calling v9fs_set_create_acl() before v9fs_fid_add().

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-22070?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2025-22070?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2025-22070 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-22070 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 AZL-61700, BELL-CVE-2025-22070, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-22070, GHSA-jprx-mprp-6qvx, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-22070, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-22070 and 1 more.