CVE-2025-68198 json
crash: fix crashkernel resource shrink
published 2025-12-16 10 mo ago modified 2026-10-14 26 d ago also EUVD-2025-203698
- cvss
- —
- not scored
- cisa kev
- Not listed
- not in CISA's catalog
- epss
- 0.2%
- EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 9%
- public exploits
- 0
- none known
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
crash: fix crashkernel resource shrink
When crashkernel is configured with a high reservation, shrinking its value below the low crashkernel reservation causes two issues:
1. Invalid crashkernel resource objects 2. Kernel crash if crashkernel shrinking is done twice
For example, with crashkernel=200M,high, the kernel reserves 200MB of high memory and some default low memory (say 256MB). The reservation appears as:
cat /proc/iomem | grep -i crash af000000-beffffff : Crash kernel 433000000-43f7fffff : Crash kernel
If crashkernel is then shrunk to 50MB (echo 52428800 > /sys/kernel/kexec_crash_size), /proc/iomem still shows 256MB reserved: af000000-beffffff : Crash kernel
Instead, it should show 50MB: af000000-b21fffff : Crash kernel
Further shrinking crashkernel to 40MB causes a kernel crash with the following trace (x86):
BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000038 PGD 0 P4D 0 Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI <snip...> Call Trace: <TASK> ? __die_body.cold+0x19/0x27 ? page_fault_oops+0x15a/0x2f0 ? search_module_extables+0x19/0x60 ? search_bpf_extables+0x5f/0x80 ? exc_page_fault+0x7e/0x180 ? asm_exc_page_fault+0x26/0x30 ? __release_resource+0xd/0xb0 release_resource+0x26/0x40 __crash_shrink_memory+0xe5/0x110 crash_shrink_memory+0x12a/0x190 kexec_crash_size_store+0x41/0x80 kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x141/0x1f0 vfs_write+0x294/0x460 ksys_write+0x6d/0xf0 <snip...>
This happens because __crash_shrink_memory()/kernel/crash_core.c incorrectly updates the crashk_res resource object even when crashk_low_res should be updated.
Fix this by ensuring the correct crashkernel resource object is updated when shrinking crashkernel memory.
Patch / fix
- Linux Linux 6.6.118, 6.12.59, 6.17.9, 6.18
- linux Debian 13 6.12.63-1
- linux Debian 14 6.17.9-1
debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-68198
- linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-106.106
- linux Ubuntu 25.10 6.17.0-14.14
- linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1050.53
- linux-aws Ubuntu 25.10 6.17.0-1007.7
- linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1052.55
- linux-gcp Ubuntu 25.10 6.17.0-1007.7
- linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1048.53
- linux-ibm Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1049.49
ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-68198
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 6.2 6.12.0-160000.9.1
- kernel-64kb SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
- kernel-source SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
- kernel-default SLES 16.0, SLE High Availability Extension 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2 +1 more 6.12.0-160000.9.1
- kernel-default-base SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1.160000.2.6
- kernel-syms SLES 16.0, Linux Micro Extras 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
- kernel-azure SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
- kernel-obs-qa SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:20207-1SUSE-SU-2026:20220-1SUSE-SU-2026:20564-1SUSE-SU-2026:20228-1
- kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
- dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
- kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
- kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
- kernel-azure openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
- kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
- kernel-source openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
- kernel-default openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.9.1
opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:20145-1
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-2025-68198 updated cvss 5.5
kernel: crash: fix crashkernel resource shrink
-
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernelaffected: 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 morenot 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
Exploit prediction
0.20% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 9% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).
Affected products
- Linux Linux
Classification
- Technology feeds
References
Sources
- CVE List CVE-2025-68198
- NVD CVE-2025-68198
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