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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2021-47617 json

PCI: pciehp: Fix infinite loop in IRQ handler upon power fault

published 2024-06-20 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-34619

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 11%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

PCI: pciehp: Fix infinite loop in IRQ handler upon power fault

The Power Fault Detected bit in the Slot Status register differs from all other hotplug events in that it is sticky: It can only be cleared after turning off slot power. Per PCIe r5.0, sec. 6.7.1.8:

If a power controller detects a main power fault on the hot-plug slot, it must automatically set its internal main power fault latch [...]. The main power fault latch is cleared when software turns off power to the hot-plug slot.

The stickiness used to cause interrupt storms and infinite loops which were fixed in 2009 by commits 5651c48cfafe ("PCI pciehp: fix power fault interrupt storm problem") and 99f0169c17f3 ("PCI: pciehp: enable software notification on empty slots").

Unfortunately in 2020 the infinite loop issue was inadvertently reintroduced by commit 8edf5332c393 ("PCI: pciehp: Fix MSI interrupt race"): The hardirq handler pciehp_isr() clears the PFD bit until pciehp's power_fault_detected flag is set. That happens in the IRQ thread pciehp_ist(), which never learns of the event because the hardirq handler is stuck in an infinite loop. Fix by setting the power_fault_detected flag already in the hardirq handler.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 4.19.233, 5.4.177, 5.10.97, 5.15.20, 5.16.6, 5.17
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.16.7-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47617

  • linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-109.123
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1072.77
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1072.77
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1020.22
  • linux-iot Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1004.6
  • linux-kvm Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1062.65
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1077.80
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1039.40

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2021-47617

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

  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.73.1
  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.73.1
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.73.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.73.1
  • kernel-source SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP5, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.73.1
  • kernel-default SLE Workstation Extension 15 SP5, SLE Module for Legacy 15 SP5, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5 +5 more 5.14.21-150500.55.73.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.73.1
  • kernel-zfcpdump SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.73.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2024:2939-1SUSE-SU-2024:2929-1SUSE-SU-2024:2902-1SUSE-SU-2024:2561-1SUSE-SU-2024:2394-1SUSE-SU-2024:2384-1

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-2021-47617 updated cvss 4.4

kernel: PCI: pciehp: Fix infinite loop in IRQ handler upon power fault

  • 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
    affected: no fix available

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

0.21% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 11% 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
  • CWE-835 Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition
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.