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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2025-23138 json

watch_queue: fix pipe accounting mismatch

published 2025-04-16 18 mo ago modified 2026-11-05 3 d ago also EUVD-2025-11156

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:

watch_queue: fix pipe accounting mismatch

Currently, watch_queue_set_size() modifies the pipe buffers charged to user->pipe_bufs without updating the pipe->nr_accounted on the pipe itself, due to the if (!pipe_has_watch_queue()) test in pipe_resize_ring(). This means that when the pipe is ultimately freed, we decrement user->pipe_bufs by something other than what than we had charged to it, potentially leading to an underflow. This in turn can cause subsequent too_many_pipe_buffers_soft() tests to fail with -EPERM.

To remedy this, explicitly account for the pipe usage in watch_queue_set_size() to match the number set via account_pipe_buffers()

(It's unclear why watch_queue_set_size() does not update nr_accounted; it may be due to intentional overprovisioning in watch_queue_set_size()?)

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.10.236, 5.15.180, 6.1.134, 6.6.87, 6.8, 6.12.23, 6.13.11, 6.14.2, 6.15
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.135-1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.12.25-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-23138

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-142.152
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-86.87
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1086.93
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1041.43
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1085.94
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1042.45
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1083.89
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1038.43

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-23138

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 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS +3 more 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS +3 more 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.4 +7 more 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1
  • kernel-zfcpdump SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, Manager Server 4.3 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.4 +5 more 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1.150400.24.84.1
  • kernel-rt Real Time Module 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.7.3.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:02262-1SUSE-SU-2025:01972-1SUSE-SU-2025:01967-1SUSE-SU-2025:01964-1SUSE-SU-2025:01951-1SUSE-SU-2025:01919-1

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-2025-23138 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: watch_queue: fix pipe accounting mismatch

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    affected: 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 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 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
3 d 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

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.