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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2025-39886 json

bpf: Tell memcg to use allow_spinning=false path in bpf_timer_init()

published 2025-09-23 13 mo ago modified 2026-10-30 10 d ago also EUVD-2025-30852

cvss
5.5
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 4%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

bpf: Tell memcg to use allow_spinning=false path in bpf_timer_init()

Currently, calling bpf_map_kmalloc_node() from __bpf_async_init() can cause various locking issues; see the following stack trace (edited for style) as one example:

... [10.011566] do_raw_spin_lock.cold [10.011570] try_to_wake_up (5) double-acquiring the same [10.011575] kick_pool rq_lock, causing a hardlockup [10.011579] __queue_work [10.011582] queue_work_on [10.011585] kernfs_notify [10.011589] cgroup_file_notify [10.011593] try_charge_memcg (4) memcg accounting raises an [10.011597] obj_cgroup_charge_pages MEMCG_MAX event [10.011599] obj_cgroup_charge_account [10.011600] __memcg_slab_post_alloc_hook [10.011603] __kmalloc_node_noprof ... [10.011611] bpf_map_kmalloc_node [10.011612] __bpf_async_init [10.011615] bpf_timer_init (3) BPF calls bpf_timer_init() [10.011617] bpf_prog_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_fcg_runnable [10.011619] bpf__sched_ext_ops_runnable [10.011620] enqueue_task_scx (2) BPF runs with rq_lock held [10.011622] enqueue_task [10.011626] ttwu_do_activate [10.011629] sched_ttwu_pending (1) grabs rq_lock ...

The above was reproduced on bpf-next (b338cf849ec8) by modifying ./tools/sched_ext/scx_flatcg.bpf.c to call bpf_timer_init() during ops.runnable(), and hacking the memcg accounting code a bit to make a bpf_timer_init() call more likely to raise an MEMCG_MAX event.

We have also run into other similar variants (both internally and on bpf-next), including double-acquiring cgroup_file_kn_lock, the same worker_pool::lock, etc.

As suggested by Shakeel, fix this by using __GFP_HIGH instead of GFP_ATOMIC in __bpf_async_init(), so that e.g. if try_charge_memcg() raises an MEMCG_MAX event, we call __memcg_memory_event() with @allow_spinning=false and avoid calling cgroup_file_notify() there.

Depends on mm patch "memcg: skip cgroup_file_notify if spinning is not allowed": https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/20250905201606.66198-1-shakeel.butt@linux.dev/

v0 approach s/bpf_map_kmalloc_node/bpf_mem_alloc/ https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/20250905061919.439648-1-yepeilin@google.com/ v1 approach: https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/20250905234547.862249-1-yepeilin@google.com/

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.1.191, 6.6.107, 6.12.48, 6.16.8, 6.17
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.48-1
  • linux Debian 14 6.16.8-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-39886

  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-106.106
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1050.53
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1052.55
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1048.53
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1049.49
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1051.57
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1035.38
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1050.54

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-39886

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 Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.112.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-67643

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

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-2025-39886 updated cvss 4.4

kernel: bpf: Tell memcg to use allow_spinning=false path in bpf_timer_init()

  • 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
9 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.15% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 4% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA 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.