Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2021-47261 json

IB/mlx5: Fix initializing CQ fragments buffer

published 2024-05-21 2 y ago modified 2026-08-05 3 mo ago also EUVD-2021-34266

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 14%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

IB/mlx5: Fix initializing CQ fragments buffer

The function init_cq_frag_buf() can be called to initialize the current CQ fragments buffer cq->buf, or the temporary cq->resize_buf that is filled during CQ resize operation.

However, the offending commit started to use function get_cqe() for getting the CQEs, the issue with this change is that get_cqe() always returns CQEs from cq->buf, which leads us to initialize the wrong buffer, and in case of enlarging the CQ we try to access elements beyond the size of the current cq->buf and eventually hit a kernel panic.

[exception RIP: init_cq_frag_buf+103] [ffff9f799ddcbcd8] mlx5_ib_resize_cq at ffffffffc0835d60 [mlx5_ib] [ffff9f799ddcbdb0] ib_resize_cq at ffffffffc05270df [ib_core] [ffff9f799ddcbdc0] llt_rdma_setup_qp at ffffffffc0a6a712 [llt] [ffff9f799ddcbe10] llt_rdma_cc_event_action at ffffffffc0a6b411 [llt] [ffff9f799ddcbe98] llt_rdma_client_conn_thread at ffffffffc0a6bb75 [llt] [ffff9f799ddcbec8] kthread at ffffffffa66c5da1 [ffff9f799ddcbf50] ret_from_fork_nospec_begin at ffffffffa6d95ddd

Fix it by getting the needed CQE by calling mlx5_frag_buf_get_wqe() that takes the correct source buffer as a parameter.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 4.19.195, 5.4.126, 5.10.44, 5.12.11, 5.13
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.10.46-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47261

  • linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-81.91
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1055.58
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1051.55
  • linux-kvm Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1045.47
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1056.58
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1022.23
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1042.46
  • linux-oracle Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1053.57

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2021-47261

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel-64kb SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS, Enterprise Storage 7.1 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.2 +5 more 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1
  • kernel-preempt SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.2 +3 more 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1.150300.18.96.1
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5 4.12.14-122.219.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:0943-1SUSE-SU-2025:0942-1SUSE-SU-2025:0898-1SUSE-SU-2024:2185-1SUSE-SU-2024:2184-1SUSE-SU-2024:2183-1

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-2021-47261 updated cvss 4.4

kernel: IB/mlx5: Fix initializing CQ fragments buffer

  • 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 kernel-rt, kernel-rt-selftests-internal
    affected: no fix available
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +82 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

0.24% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 14% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-706 Use of Incorrectly-Resolved Name or Reference
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.