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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2025-37859 json

page_pool: avoid infinite loop to schedule delayed worker

published 2025-05-09 18 mo ago modified 2026-11-05 3 d ago also EUVD-2025-14133

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 24%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

page_pool: avoid infinite loop to schedule delayed worker

We noticed the kworker in page_pool_release_retry() was waken up repeatedly and infinitely in production because of the buggy driver causing the inflight less than 0 and warning us in page_pool_inflight()[1].

Since the inflight value goes negative, it means we should not expect the whole page_pool to get back to work normally.

This patch mitigates the adverse effect by not rescheduling the kworker when detecting the inflight negative in page_pool_release_retry().

[1] [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] Negative(-51446) inflight packet-pages ... [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] Call Trace: [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] page_pool_release_retry+0x23/0x70 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] process_one_work+0x1b1/0x370 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] worker_thread+0x37/0x3a0 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] kthread+0x11a/0x140 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] ? process_one_work+0x370/0x370 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] ? __kthread_cancel_work+0x40/0x40 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] ret_from_fork+0x35/0x40 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] ---[ end trace ebffe800f33e7e34 ]--- Note: before this patch, the above calltrace would flood the dmesg due to repeated reschedule of release_dw kworker.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.4, 5.4.293, 5.10.237, 5.15.181, 6.1.135, 6.6.88, 6.12.24, 6.13.12, 6.14.3, 6.15
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.135-1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.12.25-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-37859

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-144.157
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-100.100
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1088.95
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1046.49
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1087.96
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1047.50
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1085.91
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1043.48

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-37859

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-coco SLE Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1
  • kernel-syms-coco SLE Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1
  • kernel-coco_debug SLE Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1
  • kernel-source-coco SLE Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 15.6 6.4.0-150600.23.60.3
  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP6, openSUSE Leap 15.6 6.4.0-150600.23.60.4
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP6, openSUSE Leap 15.6 6.4.0-150600.23.60.4
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 15.6 6.4.0-150600.23.60.2

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:02923-1SUSE-SU-2025:02538-1SUSE-SU-2025:20498-1SUSE-SU-2025:20483-1SUSE-SU-2025:02335-1SUSE-SU-2025:02333-1

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-2025-37859 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: page_pool: avoid infinite loop to schedule delayed worker

  • 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
    affected: 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: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 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

0.31% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 24% 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.