CVE-2025-22127 f2fs: fix potential deadloop in prepare_compress_overwrite()
A local attacker can cause a kernel hang and denial of service in the f2fs filesystem by triggering an infinite loop during compressed file writeback operations.
- 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-2025-22127?
CVE-2025-22127 is a medium-severity denial of service 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:
f2fs: fix potential deadloop in prepare_compress_overwrite()
Jan Prusakowski reported a kernel hang issue as below:
When running xfstests on linux-next kernel (6.14.0-rc3, 6.12) I encountered a problem in generic/475 test where fsstress process gets blocked in __f2fs_write_data_pages() and the test hangs. The options I used are:
MKFS_OPTIONS -- -O compression -O extra_attr -O project_quota -O quota /dev/vdc MOUNT_OPTIONS -- -o acl,user_xattr -o discard,compress_extension=* /dev/vdc /vdc
INFO: task kworker/u8:0:11 blocked for more than 122 seconds. Not tainted 6.14.0-rc3-xfstests-lockdep #1 "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. task:kworker/u8:0 state:D stack:0 pid:11 tgid:11 ppid:2 task_flags:0x4208160 flags:0x00004000 Workqueue: writeback wb_workfn (flush-253:0) Call Trace: <TASK> __schedule+0x309/0x8e0 schedule+0x3a/0x100 schedule_preempt_disabled+0x15/0x30 __mutex_lock+0x59a/0xdb0 __f2fs_write_data_pages+0x3ac/0x400 do_writepages+0xe8/0x290 __writeback_single_inode+0x5c/0x360 writeback_sb_inodes+0x22f/0x570 wb_writeback+0xb0/0x410 wb_do_writeback+0x47/0x2f0 wb_workfn+0x5a/0x1c0 process_one_work+0x223/0x5b0 worker_thread+0x1d5/0x3c0 kthread+0xfd/0x230 ret_from_fork+0x31/0x50 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 </TASK>
The root cause is: once generic/475 starts toload error table to dm device, f2fs_prepare_compress_overwrite() will loop reading compressed cluster pages due to IO error, meanwhile it has held .writepages lock, it can block all other writeback tasks.
Let's fix this issue w/ below changes: - add f2fs_handle_page_eio() in prepare_compress_overwrite() to detect IO error. - detect cp_error earler in f2fs_read_multi_pages().
Weakness: CWE-667
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-22127?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2025-22127?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2025-22127 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-22127 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-22127, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-22127, GHSA-gj5h-7fq5-56p5, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-22127, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-22127, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-13-CVE-2025-22127 and 3 more.