CVE-2025-68321 page_pool: always add GFP_NOWARN for ATOMIC allocations
The Linux kernel page pool now adds GFP_NOWARN for atomic allocations to prevent excessive logging during out-of-memory conditions, mitigating potential denial of service.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2025-68321?
CVE-2025-68321 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 16 Dec 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
page_pool: always add GFP_NOWARN for ATOMIC allocations
Driver authors often forget to add GFP_NOWARN for page allocation from the datapath. This is annoying to users as OOMs are a fact of life, and we pretty much expect network Rx to hit page allocation failures during OOM. Make page pool add GFP_NOWARN for ATOMIC allocations by default.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-68321?
How do I fix CVE-2025-68321?
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-2025-68321 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-68321 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-68321, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-68321, GHSA-r8w7-3p4p-f22f, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-68321, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-68321, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-13-CVE-2025-68321 and 3 more.