CVE-2025-38127 ice: fix Tx scheduler error handling in XDP callback

High 7.8 Published Updated

A bug in the Intel ice driver's XDP callback fails to roll back changes on error, causing a general protection fault and system crash.

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-2025-38127?

CVE-2025-38127 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 3 Jul 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:

ice: fix Tx scheduler error handling in XDP callback

When the XDP program is loaded, the XDP callback adds new Tx queues. This means that the callback must update the Tx scheduler with the new queue number. In the event of a Tx scheduler failure, the XDP callback should also fail and roll back any changes previously made for XDP preparation.

The previous implementation had a bug that not all changes made by the XDP callback were rolled back. This caused the crash with the following call trace:

[ +9.549584] ice 0000:ca:00.0: Failed VSI LAN queue config for XDP, error: -5 [ +0.382335] Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0x50a2250a90495525: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI [ +0.010710] CPU: 103 UID: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/103 Not tainted 6.14.0-net-next-mar-31+ #14 PREEMPT(voluntary) [ +0.010175] Hardware name: Intel Corporation M50CYP2SBSTD/M50CYP2SBSTD, BIOS SE5C620.86B.01.01.0005.2202160810 02/16/2022 [ +0.010946] RIP: 0010:__ice_update_sample+0x39/0xe0 [ice]

[...]

[ +0.002715] Call Trace: [ +0.002452] <IRQ> [ +0.002021] ? __die_body.cold+0x19/0x29 [ +0.003922] ? die_addr+0x3c/0x60 [ +0.003319] ? exc_general_protection+0x17c/0x400 [ +0.004707] ? asm_exc_general_protection+0x26/0x30 [ +0.004879] ? __ice_update_sample+0x39/0xe0 [ice] [ +0.004835] ice_napi_poll+0x665/0x680 [ice] [ +0.004320] __napi_poll+0x28/0x190 [ +0.003500] net_rx_action+0x198/0x360 [ +0.003752] ? update_rq_clock+0x39/0x220 [ +0.004013] handle_softirqs+0xf1/0x340 [ +0.003840] ? sched_clock_cpu+0xf/0x1f0 [ +0.003925] __irq_exit_rcu+0xc2/0xe0 [ +0.003665] common_interrupt+0x85/0xa0 [ +0.003839] </IRQ> [ +0.002098] <TASK> [ +0.002106] asm_common_interrupt+0x26/0x40 [ +0.004184] RIP: 0010:cpuidle_enter_state+0xd3/0x690

Fix this by performing the missing unmapping of XDP queues from q_vectors and setting the XDP rings pointer back to NULL after all those queues are released. Also, add an immediate exit from the XDP callback in case of ring preparation failure.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38127?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2025-38127?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2025-38127 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38127 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as AZL-64628, AZL-70636, BELL-CVE-2025-38127, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38127, GHSA-8mxh-837m-r6w5, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-38127 and 4 more.

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