# CVE-2025-38496: dm-bufio: fix sched in atomic context

> A bug in the Linux kernel dm-bufio module causes a kernel panic when scheduling occurs in atomic context, leading to denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **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:** Yes
- **Published:** 28 Jul 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-65925, BELL-CVE-2025-38496, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-38496, GHSA-8h6h-2w9h-vcg2, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-38496, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38496

## What is CVE-2025-38496?

CVE-2025-38496 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 28 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:

dm-bufio: fix sched in atomic context

If "try_verify_in_tasklet" is set for dm-verity, DM_BUFIO_CLIENT_NO_SLEEP
is enabled for dm-bufio. However, when bufio tries to evict buffers, there
is a chance to trigger scheduling in spin_lock_bh, the following warning
is hit:

BUG: sleeping function called from invalid context at drivers/md/dm-bufio.c:2745
in_atomic(): 1, irqs_disabled(): 0, non_block: 0, pid: 123, name: kworker/2:2
preempt_count: 201, expected: 0
RCU nest depth: 0, expected: 0
4 locks held by kworker/2:2/123:
 #0: ffff88800a2d1548 ((wq_completion)dm_bufio_cache){....}-{0:0}, at: process_one_work+0xe46/0x1970
 #1: ffffc90000d97d20 ((work_completion)(&dm_bufio_replacement_work)){....}-{0:0}, at: process_one_work+0x763/0x1970
 #2: ffffffff8555b528 (dm_bufio_clients_lock){....}-{3:3}, at: do_global_cleanup+0x1ce/0x710
 #3: ffff88801d5820b8 (&c->spinlock){....}-{2:2}, at: do_global_cleanup+0x2a5/0x710
Preemption disabled at:
[<0000000000000000>] 0x0
CPU: 2 UID: 0 PID: 123 Comm: kworker/2:2 Not tainted 6.16.0-rc3-g90548c634bd0 #305 PREEMPT(voluntary)
Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.16.3-0-ga6ed6b701f0a-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014
Workqueue: dm_bufio_cache do_global_cleanup
Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 dump_stack_lvl+0x53/0x70
 __might_resched+0x360/0x4e0
 do_global_cleanup+0x2f5/0x710
 process_one_work+0x7db/0x1970
 worker_thread+0x518/0xea0
 kthread+0x359/0x690
 ret_from_fork+0xf3/0x1b0
 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30
 </TASK>

That can be reproduced by:

  veritysetup format --data-block-size=4096 --hash-block-size=4096 /dev/vda /dev/vdb
  SIZE=$(blockdev --getsz /dev/vda)
  dmsetup create myverity -r --table "0 $SIZE verity 1 /dev/vda /dev/vdb 4096 4096 <data_blocks> 1 sha256 <root_hash> <salt> 1 try_verify_in_tasklet"
  mount /dev/dm-0 /mnt -o ro
  echo 102400 > /sys/module/dm_bufio/parameters/max_cache_size_bytes
  [read files in /mnt]

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38496?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-38496?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-38496 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38496 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-38496 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-38496 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 28 Jul 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38496 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38496/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38496/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-38496
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-38496
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-38496

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-38496/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.