Import Source
https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData/blob/main/osv/AZL-55736.json
JSON Data
https://api.test.osv.dev/v1/vulns/AZL-55736
Upstream
Published
2025-01-11T13:15:28Z
Modified
2026-04-01T05:18:43Z
Severity
  • 5.5 (Medium) CVSS_V3 - CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H CVSS Calculator
Summary
CVE-2024-55916 affecting package kernel for versions less than 6.6.76.1-1
Details

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

Drivers: hv: util: Avoid accessing a ringbuffer not initialized yet

If the KVP (or VSS) daemon starts before the VMBus channel's ringbuffer is fully initialized, we can hit the panic below:

hv_utils: Registering HyperV Utility Driver hv_vmbus: registering driver hv_utils ... BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000 CPU: 44 UID: 0 PID: 2552 Comm: hv_kvp_daemon Tainted: G E 6.11.0-rc3+ #1 RIP: 0010:hv_pkt_iter_first+0x12/0xd0 Call Trace: ... vmbus_recvpacket hv_kvp_onchannelcallback vmbus_on_event tasklet_action_common tasklet_action handle_softirqs irq_exit_rcu sysvec_hyperv_stimer0 asm_sysvec_hyperv_stimer0 ... kvp_register_done hvt_op_read vfs_read ksys_read __x64_sys_read

This can happen because the KVP/VSS channel callback can be invoked even before the channel is fully opened:

  1. as soon as hv_kvp_init() -> hvutil_transport_init() creates /dev/vmbus/hv_kvp, the kvp daemon can open the device file immediately and register itself to the driver by writing a message KVP_OP_REGISTER1 to the file (which is handled by kvp_on_msg() ->kvp_handle_handshake()) and reading the file for the driver's response, which is handled by hvt_op_read(), which calls hvt->on_read(), i.e. kvp_register_done().

  2. the problem with kvp_register_done() is that it can cause the channel callback to be called even before the channel is fully opened, and when the channel callback is starting to run, util_probe()-> vmbus_open() may have not initialized the ringbuffer yet, so the callback can hit the panic of NULL pointer dereference.

To reproduce the panic consistently, we can add a "ssleep(10)" for KVP in __vmbus_open(), just before the first hv_ringbuffer_init(), and then we unload and reload the driver hv_utils, and run the daemon manually within the 10 seconds.

Fix the panic by reordering the steps in util_probe() so the char dev entry used by the KVP or VSS daemon is not created until after vmbus_open() has completed. This reordering prevents the race condition from happening.

References

Affected packages

Azure Linux:3 / kernel

Package

Name
kernel
Purl
pkg:rpm/azure-linux/kernel

Affected ranges

Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
0 Unknown introduced version / All previous versions are affected
Fixed
6.6.76.1-1

Database specific

source
"https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData/blob/main/osv/AZL-55736.json"