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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2025-21701 json

net: avoid race between device unregistration and ethnl ops

published 2025-02-13 20 mo ago modified 2026-10-15 25 d ago also EUVD-2025-2650

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 6%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

net: avoid race between device unregistration and ethnl ops

The following trace can be seen if a device is being unregistered while its number of channels are being modified.

DEBUG_LOCKS_WARN_ON(lock->magic != lock) WARNING: CPU: 3 PID: 3754 at kernel/locking/mutex.c:564 __mutex_lock+0xc8a/0x1120 CPU: 3 UID: 0 PID: 3754 Comm: ethtool Not tainted 6.13.0-rc6+ #771 RIP: 0010:__mutex_lock+0xc8a/0x1120 Call Trace: <TASK> ethtool_check_max_channel+0x1ea/0x880 ethnl_set_channels+0x3c3/0xb10 ethnl_default_set_doit+0x306/0x650 genl_family_rcv_msg_doit+0x1e3/0x2c0 genl_rcv_msg+0x432/0x6f0 netlink_rcv_skb+0x13d/0x3b0 genl_rcv+0x28/0x40 netlink_unicast+0x42e/0x720 netlink_sendmsg+0x765/0xc20 __sys_sendto+0x3ac/0x420 __x64_sys_sendto+0xe0/0x1c0 do_syscall_64+0x95/0x180 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e

This is because unregister_netdevice_many_notify might run before the rtnl lock section of ethnl operations, eg. set_channels in the above example. In this example the rss lock would be destroyed by the device unregistration path before being used again, but in general running ethnl operations while dismantle has started is not a good idea.

Fix this by denying any operation on devices being unregistered. A check was already there in ethnl_ops_begin, but not wide enough.

Note that the same issue cannot be seen on the ioctl version (__dev_ethtool) because the device reference is retrieved from within the rtnl lock section there. Once dismantle started, the net device is unlisted and no reference will be found.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.11, 5.15.179, 6.1.129, 6.6.76, 6.12.13, 6.13.2, 6.14
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.129-1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.12.13-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-21701

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-138.148
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-58.60
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1082.89
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1027.29
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1081.90
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1028.30
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1079.85
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1023.27

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-21701

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 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS 5.14.21-150500.55.121.2
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150500.55.121.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.5 +2 more 5.14.21-150500.55.121.2
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.5 +3 more 5.14.21-150500.55.121.2
  • kernel-obs-build SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150500.55.121.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.5 +2 more 5.14.21-150500.55.121.2.150500.6.57.2
  • kernel-livepatch-MICRO-6-0-RT_Update_2 Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 11-1.1
  • kernel-livepatch-MICRO-6-0_Update_2 Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 11-1.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:03403-1SUSE-SU-2025:03344-1SUSE-SU-2025:03235-1SUSE-SU-2025:03226-1SUSE-SU-2025:03223-1SUSE-SU-2025:03217-1

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-2025-21701 updated cvss 4.7

kernel: net: avoid race between device unregistration and ethnl ops

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • 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
    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 ICSA-25-162-05 updated cvss 4.7

Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU family

  • Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP (6ES7518-4AX00-1AB0) >= 3.1.5 Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP (6ES7518-4AX00-1AC0) >= 3.1.5 Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518F-4 PN/DP MFP (6ES7518-4FX00-1AB0) >= 3.1.5 Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518F-4 PN/DP MFP (6ES7518-4FX00-1AC0) >= 3.1.5 Siemens SIPLUS S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP (6AG1518-4AX00-4AC0) >= 3.1.5
    affected: mitigation, no fix available

Facts from CISA's republication of the vendor's own advisory (CSAF); the linked advisory is the authoritative source. CISA notification · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
14 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.17% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 6% 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
CISA ADP 3.1 7.4 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 4.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA 3.1 7.4 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux
  • Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP
  • Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518F-4 PN/DP MFP
  • Siemens SIPLUS S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-362 Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization
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.