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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2021-46964 json

scsi: qla2xxx: Reserve extra IRQ vectors

published 2024-02-27 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-33612

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 13%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

scsi: qla2xxx: Reserve extra IRQ vectors

Commit a6dcfe08487e ("scsi: qla2xxx: Limit interrupt vectors to number of CPUs") lowers the number of allocated MSI-X vectors to the number of CPUs.

That breaks vector allocation assumptions in qla83xx_iospace_config(), qla24xx_enable_msix() and qla2x00_iospace_config(). Either of the functions computes maximum number of qpairs as:

ha->max_qpairs = ha->msix_count - 1 (MB interrupt) - 1 (default response queue) - 1 (ATIO, in dual or pure target mode)

max_qpairs is set to zero in case of two CPUs and initiator mode. The number is then used to allocate ha->queue_pair_map inside qla2x00_alloc_queues(). No allocation happens and ha->queue_pair_map is left NULL but the driver thinks there are queue pairs available.

qla2xxx_queuecommand() tries to find a qpair in the map and crashes:

if (ha->mqenable) { uint32_t tag; uint16_t hwq; struct qla_qpair *qpair = NULL;

tag = blk_mq_unique_tag(cmd->request); hwq = blk_mq_unique_tag_to_hwq(tag); qpair = ha->queue_pair_map[hwq]; # <- HERE

if (qpair) return qla2xxx_mqueuecommand(host, cmd, qpair); }

BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000 #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page PGD 0 P4D 0 Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP PTI CPU: 0 PID: 72 Comm: kworker/u4:3 Tainted: G W 5.10.0-rc1+ #25 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 1.0.0-prebuilt.qemu-project.org 04/01/2014 Workqueue: scsi_wq_7 fc_scsi_scan_rport [scsi_transport_fc] RIP: 0010:qla2xxx_queuecommand+0x16b/0x3f0 [qla2xxx] Call Trace: scsi_queue_rq+0x58c/0xa60 blk_mq_dispatch_rq_list+0x2b7/0x6f0 ? __sbitmap_get_word+0x2a/0x80 __blk_mq_sched_dispatch_requests+0xb8/0x170 blk_mq_sched_dispatch_requests+0x2b/0x50 __blk_mq_run_hw_queue+0x49/0xb0 __blk_mq_delay_run_hw_queue+0xfb/0x150 blk_mq_sched_insert_request+0xbe/0x110 blk_execute_rq+0x45/0x70 __scsi_execute+0x10e/0x250 scsi_probe_and_add_lun+0x228/0xda0 __scsi_scan_target+0xf4/0x620 ? __pm_runtime_resume+0x4f/0x70 scsi_scan_target+0x100/0x110 fc_scsi_scan_rport+0xa1/0xb0 [scsi_transport_fc] process_one_work+0x1ea/0x3b0 worker_thread+0x28/0x3b0 ? process_one_work+0x3b0/0x3b0 kthread+0x112/0x130 ? kthread_park+0x80/0x80 ret_from_fork+0x22/0x30

The driver should allocate enough vectors to provide every CPU it's own HW queue and still handle reserved (MB, RSP, ATIO) interrupts.

The change fixes the crash on dual core VM and prevents unbalanced QP allocation where nr_hw_queues is two less than the number of CPUs.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.11.20, 5.12.3, 5.13
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5 4.12.14-122.216.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5 4.12.14-122.216.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5, SLE Workstation Extension 12 SP5 +2 more 4.12.14-122.216.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP5 4.12.14-122.216.1
  • kernel-rt SLE Real Time 12 SP5 4.12.14-10.182.1
  • kernel-syms-rt SLE Real Time 12 SP5 4.12.14-10.182.1
  • kernel-rt_debug SLE Real Time 12 SP5 4.12.14-10.182.1
  • kernel-source-rt SLE Real Time 12 SP5 4.12.14-10.182.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2024:1870-1SUSE-SU-2024:1646-1SUSE-SU-2024:1643-1SUSE-SU-2024:0926-1SUSE-SU-2024:0857-1SUSE-SU-2024:0856-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2021-46964 updated cvss 4.4

kernel: scsi: qla2xxx: Reserve extra IRQ vectors

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

0.22% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 13% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.