CVE-2025-38311

Source
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-38311
Import Source
https://storage.googleapis.com/osv-test-cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2025-38311.json
JSON Data
https://api.test.osv.dev/v1/vulns/CVE-2025-38311
Downstream
Published
2025-07-10T07:42:20.006Z
Modified
2025-11-27T19:35:41.772394Z
Summary
iavf: get rid of the crit lock
Details

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

iavf: get rid of the crit lock

Get rid of the crit lock. That frees us from the error prone logic of try_locks.

Thanks to netdev_lock() by Jakub it is now easy, and in most cases we were protected by it already - replace crit lock by netdev lock when it was not the case.

Lockdep reports that we should cancel the work under crit_lock [splat1], and that was the scheme we have mostly followed since [1] by Slawomir. But when that is done we still got into deadlocks [splat2]. So instead we should look at the bigger problem, namely "weird locking/scheduling" of the iavf. The first step to fix that is to remove the crit lock. I will followup with a -next series that simplifies scheduling/tasks.

Cancel the work without netdev lock (weird unlock+lock scheme), to fix the [splat2] (which would be totally ugly if we would kept the crit lock).

Extend protected part of iavfwatchdogtask() to include scheduling more work.

Note that the removed comment in iavfresettask() was misplaced, it belonged to inside of the removed if condition, so it's gone now.

[splat1] - w/o this patch - The deadlock during VF removal: WARNING: possible circular locking dependency detected sh/3825 is trying to acquire lock: ((workcompletion)(&(&adapter->watchdogtask)->work)){+.+.}-{0:0}, at: startflushwork+0x1a1/0x470 but task is already holding lock: (&adapter->critlock){+.+.}-{4:4}, at: iavfremove+0xd1/0x690 [iavf] which lock already depends on the new lock.

[splat2] - when cancelling work under crit lock, w/o this series, see [2] for the band aid attempt WARNING: possible circular locking dependency detected sh/3550 is trying to acquire lock: ((wqcompletion)iavf){+.+.}-{0:0}, at: touchwqlockdepmap+0x26/0x90 but task is already holding lock: (&dev->lock){+.+.}-{4:4}, at: iavf_remove+0xa6/0x6e0 [iavf] which lock already depends on the new lock.

[1] fc2e6b3b132a ("iavf: Rework mutexes for better synchronisation") [2] https://github.com/pkitszel/linux/commit/52dddbfc2bb60294083f5711a158a

Database specific
{
    "osv_generated_from": "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/ee626f5d79d5817bb21d6f048dc0da4c4e383443/cves/2025/38xxx/CVE-2025-38311.json",
    "cna_assigner": "Linux"
}
References

Affected packages

Git / git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git

Affected ranges

Type
GIT
Repo
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git
Events
Introduced
d1639a17319ba78a018280cd2df6577a7e5d9fab
Fixed
620ab4d6215de0b25227f9fff1a8c7fb66837cb8
Type
GIT
Repo
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git
Events
Introduced
d1639a17319ba78a018280cd2df6577a7e5d9fab
Fixed
120f28a6f314fef7f282c99f196923fe44081cad
Type
GIT
Repo
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git
Events
Introduced
0 Unknown introduced commit / All previous commits are affected
Last affected
2647ff59c52ef42c853c905817ed1a7f092d59a5
Type
GIT
Repo
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git
Events
Introduced
0 Unknown introduced commit / All previous commits are affected
Last affected
63d14a43128540016ebd4f7fa3ad3a2f0d6e642c

Linux / Kernel

Package

Name
Kernel

Affected ranges

Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
6.5.0
Fixed
6.15.3