CVE-2025-38256 io_uring/rsrc: fix folio unpinning
A bug in Linux kernel io_uring resource handling causes a kernel panic during unpinning, leading to denial of service.
- 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-2025-38256?
CVE-2025-38256 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 9 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:
io_uring/rsrc: fix folio unpinning
syzbot complains about an unmapping failure:
[ 108.070381][ T14] kernel BUG at mm/gup.c:71! [ 108.070502][ T14] Internal error: Oops - BUG: 00000000f2000800 [#1] SMP [ 108.123672][ T14] Hardware name: QEMU KVM Virtual Machine, BIOS edk2-20250221-8.fc42 02/21/2025 [ 108.127458][ T14] Workqueue: iou_exit io_ring_exit_work [ 108.174205][ T14] Call trace: [ 108.175649][ T14] sanity_check_pinned_pages+0x7cc/0x7d0 (P) [ 108.178138][ T14] unpin_user_page+0x80/0x10c [ 108.180189][ T14] io_release_ubuf+0x84/0xf8 [ 108.182196][ T14] io_free_rsrc_node+0x250/0x57c [ 108.184345][ T14] io_rsrc_data_free+0x148/0x298 [ 108.186493][ T14] io_sqe_buffers_unregister+0x84/0xa0 [ 108.188991][ T14] io_ring_ctx_free+0x48/0x480 [ 108.191057][ T14] io_ring_exit_work+0x764/0x7d8 [ 108.193207][ T14] process_one_work+0x7e8/0x155c [ 108.195431][ T14] worker_thread+0x958/0xed8 [ 108.197561][ T14] kthread+0x5fc/0x75c [ 108.199362][ T14] ret_from_fork+0x10/0x20
We can pin a tail page of a folio, but then io_uring will try to unpin the head page of the folio. While it should be fine in terms of keeping the page actually alive, mm folks say it's wrong and triggers a debug warning. Use unpin_user_folio() instead of unpin_user_page*.
[axboe: adapt to current tree, massage commit message]
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38256?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2025-38256?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2025-38256 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38256 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-38256, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38256, GHSA-83mm-95m8-59x2, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38256.