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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2024-38557 json

net/mlx5: Reload only IB representors upon lag disable/enable

published 2024-06-19 2 y ago modified 2026-10-30 10 d ago also EUVD-2024-37420

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 7%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

net/mlx5: Reload only IB representors upon lag disable/enable

On lag disable, the bond IB device along with all of its representors are destroyed, and then the slaves' representors get reloaded.

In case the slave IB representor load fails, the eswitch error flow unloads all representors, including ethernet representors, where the netdevs get detached and removed from lag bond. Such flow is inaccurate as the lag driver is not responsible for loading/unloading ethernet representors. Furthermore, the flow described above begins by holding lag lock to prevent bond changes during disable flow. However, when reaching the ethernet representors detachment from lag, the lag lock is required again, triggering the following deadlock:

Call trace: __switch_to+0xf4/0x148 __schedule+0x2c8/0x7d0 schedule+0x50/0xe0 schedule_preempt_disabled+0x18/0x28 __mutex_lock.isra.13+0x2b8/0x570 __mutex_lock_slowpath+0x1c/0x28 mutex_lock+0x4c/0x68 mlx5_lag_remove_netdev+0x3c/0x1a0 [mlx5_core] mlx5e_uplink_rep_disable+0x70/0xa0 [mlx5_core] mlx5e_detach_netdev+0x6c/0xb0 [mlx5_core] mlx5e_netdev_change_profile+0x44/0x138 [mlx5_core] mlx5e_netdev_attach_nic_profile+0x28/0x38 [mlx5_core] mlx5e_vport_rep_unload+0x184/0x1b8 [mlx5_core] mlx5_esw_offloads_rep_load+0xd8/0xe0 [mlx5_core] mlx5_eswitch_reload_reps+0x74/0xd0 [mlx5_core] mlx5_disable_lag+0x130/0x138 [mlx5_core] mlx5_lag_disable_change+0x6c/0x70 [mlx5_core] // hold ldev->lock mlx5_devlink_eswitch_mode_set+0xc0/0x410 [mlx5_core] devlink_nl_cmd_eswitch_set_doit+0xdc/0x180 genl_family_rcv_msg_doit.isra.17+0xe8/0x138 genl_rcv_msg+0xe4/0x220 netlink_rcv_skb+0x44/0x108 genl_rcv+0x40/0x58 netlink_unicast+0x198/0x268 netlink_sendmsg+0x1d4/0x418 sock_sendmsg+0x54/0x60 __sys_sendto+0xf4/0x120 __arm64_sys_sendto+0x30/0x40 el0_svc_common+0x8c/0x120 do_el0_svc+0x30/0xa0 el0_svc+0x20/0x30 el0_sync_handler+0x90/0xb8 el0_sync+0x160/0x180

Thus, upon lag enable/disable, load and unload only the IB representors of the slaves preventing the deadlock mentioned above.

While at it, refactor the mlx5_esw_offloads_rep_load() function to have a static helper method for its internal logic, in symmetry with the representor unload design.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.1.191, 6.6.33, 6.8.12, 6.9.3, 6.10
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.8.12-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2024-38557

  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-40.40
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1013.14
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1012.13
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1008.11
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1010.10
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1012.14
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1009.10
  • linux-riscv Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-40.40.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2024-38557

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-rt Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-9.1
  • kernel-source-rt Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-9.1
  • kernel-source Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-18.1
  • kernel-default Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-18.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-18.1
  • kernel-default-base Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-17.1.1.51
  • kernel-rt Real Time Module 15 SP6, openSUSE Leap 15.6 6.4.0-150600.10.5.1
  • kernel-syms-rt Real Time Module 15 SP6, openSUSE Leap 15.6 6.4.0-150600.10.5.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:20028-1SUSE-SU-2025:20008-1SUSE-SU-2024:2973-1SUSE-SU-2024:2939-1SUSE-SU-2024:2896-1SUSE-SU-2024:2571-1

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-2024-38557 updated cvss 4.4

kernel: net/mlx5: Reload only IB representors upon lag disable/enable

  • 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 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more 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

0.18% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 7% 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.