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Fencer Vulns
no cvss —

CVE-2023-53765 json

dm cache: free background tracker's queued work in btracker_destroy

published 2025-12-08 11 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2023-60063

cvss
—
not scored
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 9%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

dm cache: free background tracker's queued work in btracker_destroy

Otherwise the kernel can BUG with:

[ 2245.426978] ============================================================================= [ 2245.435155] BUG bt_work (Tainted: G B W ): Objects remaining in bt_work on __kmem_cache_shutdown() [ 2245.445233] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ 2245.445233] [ 2245.454879] Slab 0x00000000b0ce2b30 objects=64 used=2 fp=0x000000000a3c6a4e flags=0x17ffffc0000200(slab|node=0|zone=2|lastcpupid=0x1fffff) [ 2245.467300] CPU: 7 PID: 10805 Comm: lvm Kdump: loaded Tainted: G B W 6.0.0-rc2 #19 [ 2245.476078] Hardware name: Dell Inc. PowerEdge R7525/0590KW, BIOS 2.5.6 10/06/2021 [ 2245.483646] Call Trace: [ 2245.486100] <TASK> [ 2245.488206] dump_stack_lvl+0x34/0x48 [ 2245.491878] slab_err+0x95/0xcd [ 2245.495028] __kmem_cache_shutdown.cold+0x31/0x136 [ 2245.499821] kmem_cache_destroy+0x49/0x130 [ 2245.503928] btracker_destroy+0x12/0x20 [dm_cache] [ 2245.508728] smq_destroy+0x15/0x60 [dm_cache_smq] [ 2245.513435] dm_cache_policy_destroy+0x12/0x20 [dm_cache] [ 2245.518834] destroy+0xc0/0x110 [dm_cache] [ 2245.522933] dm_table_destroy+0x5c/0x120 [dm_mod] [ 2245.527649] __dm_destroy+0x10e/0x1c0 [dm_mod] [ 2245.532102] dev_remove+0x117/0x190 [dm_mod] [ 2245.536384] ctl_ioctl+0x1a2/0x290 [dm_mod] [ 2245.540579] dm_ctl_ioctl+0xa/0x20 [dm_mod] [ 2245.544773] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x8a/0xc0 [ 2245.548524] do_syscall_64+0x5c/0x90 [ 2245.552104] ? syscall_exit_to_user_mode+0x12/0x30 [ 2245.556897] ? do_syscall_64+0x69/0x90 [ 2245.560648] ? do_syscall_64+0x69/0x90 [ 2245.564394] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd [ 2245.569447] RIP: 0033:0x7fe52583ec6b ... [ 2245.646771] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [ 2245.651395] kmem_cache_destroy bt_work: Slab cache still has objects when called from btracker_destroy+0x12/0x20 [dm_cache] [ 2245.651408] WARNING: CPU: 7 PID: 10805 at mm/slab_common.c:478 kmem_cache_destroy+0x128/0x130

Found using: lvm2-testsuite --only "cache-single-split.sh"

Ben bisected and found that commit 0495e337b703 ("mm/slab_common: Deleting kobject in kmem_cache_destroy() without holding slab_mutex/cpu_hotplug_lock") first exposed dm-cache's incomplete cleanup of its background tracker work objects.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.1.16, 6.2.3, 6.3
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 6.1.20-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53765

  • kernel RHEL 8 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9
  • perf RHEL 8 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9
  • bpftool RHEL 8 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9
  • kernel-core RHEL 8 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9
  • kernel-tools RHEL 8 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9
  • python3-perf RHEL 8 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9
  • kernel-modules RHEL 8 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9
  • kernel-zfcpdump RHEL 8 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9

red hat advisories RHSA-2023:7077RHSA-2023:2458

  • kernel-syms SLES LTSS Extended Security 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5-LTSS 4.12.14-122.290.1
  • kernel-source SLES LTSS Extended Security 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5-LTSS 4.12.14-122.290.1
  • kernel-default SLES LTSS Extended Security 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5-LTSS, SLE Live Patching 12 SP5 4.12.14-122.290.1
  • kgraft-patch-SLE12-SP5_Update_76 SLE Live Patching 12 SP5 1-8.7.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:0316-1

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-2023-53765 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: dm cache: free background tracker's queued work in btracker_destroy

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 kernel-rt, kernel-rt-kvm, kernel-rt-core, kernel-rt-modules, kernel-rt-debug-kvm, kernel-rt-debug-core, +6 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 kernel-rt, kernel-rt-kvm, kernel-rt-core, kernel-rt-modules, kernel-rt-debug-kvm, kernel-rt-debug-core, +12 more
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat CodeReady Linux Builder (v. 8) kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9, kernel-debuginfo-common-aarch64 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9, kernel-debuginfo-common-ppc64le 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:7077
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) perf 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, rtla 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-devel-matched 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-64k-devel-matched 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-debug-devel-matched 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-debuginfo-common-s390x 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, +5 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:2458
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 8) perf 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9, kernel 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9, bpftool 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9, kernel-core 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9, kernel-tools 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9, python3-perf 4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_9, +15 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:7077
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 9) bpftool 7.0.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-64k 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-core 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-tools 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, python3-perf 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, +28 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux CRB (v. 9) kernel-debuginfo-common-s390x 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-debuginfo-common-aarch64 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-debuginfo-common-ppc64le 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:2458
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    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

Exploit prediction

0.20% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 9% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

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.