openvswitch: fix lockup on tx to unregistering netdev with carrier (Linux Linux)

CVE-2025-21681
MEDIUM 5.5

At a glance

Source
NVD
EPSS
EPSS 0.22 % · percentile 12 ()
State
PUBLISHED
Published
Updated
Assigner
Linux
NVD status
Modified

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: openvswitch: fix lockup on tx to unregistering netdev with carrier Commit in a fixes tag attempted to fix the issue in the following sequence of calls: do_output -> ovs_vport_send -> dev_queue_xmit -> __dev_queue_xmit -> netdev_core_pick_tx -> skb_tx_hash When device is unregistering, the 'dev->real_num_tx_queues' goes to zero and the 'while (unlikely(hash >= qcount))' loop inside the 'skb_tx_hash' becomes infinite, locking up the core forever. But unfortunately, checking just the carrier status is not enough to fix the issue, because some devices may still be in unregistering state while reporting carrier status OK. One example of such device is a net/dummy. It sets carrier ON on start, but it doesn't implement .ndo_stop to set the carrier off. And it makes sense, because dummy doesn't really have a carrier. Therefore, while this device is unregistering, it's still easy to hit the infinite loop in the skb_tx_hash() from the OVS datapath. There might be other drivers that do the same, but dummy by itself is important for the OVS ecosystem, because it is frequently used as a packet sink for tcpdump while debugging OVS deployments. And when the issue is hit, the only way to recover is to reboot. Fix that by also checking if the device is running. The running state is handled by the net core during unregistering, so it covers unregistering case better, and we don't really need to send packets to devices that are not running anyway. While only checking the running state might be enough, the carrier check is preserved. The running and the carrier states seem disjoined throughout the code and different drivers. And other core functions like __dev_direct_xmit() check both before attempting to transmit a packet. So, it seems safer to check both flags in OVS as well.

Weaknesses (CWE)

  • CWE-835 — Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition

References

Scores

VersionScoreVectorScored by
CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 5.5CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HNVD · nvd@nist.gov (Primary)

European references

CERT-FR advisories

Affected configurations (NVD CPE)

Affected products

ProductVersions
Linux · Linuxaffected 9b0dd09c1ceb35950d2884848099fccc9ec9a123 < b5c73fc92f8d15c16e5dc87b5c17d2abf1e6d092 ; affected 284be5db6c8d06d247ed056cfc448c4f79bbb16c < 87fcf0d137c770e6040ebfdb0abd8e7dd481b504 ; affected 5efcb301523baacd98a47553d4996e924923114d < 930268823f6bccb697aa5d2047aeffd4a497308c ; affected 644b3051b06ba465bc7401bfae9b14963cbc8c1c < ea9e990356b7bee95440ba0e6e83cc4d701afaca ; affected 066b86787fa3d97b7aefb5ac0a99a22dad2d15f8 < ea966b6698785fb9cd0fdb867acd91b222e4723f ; affected 066b86787fa3d97b7aefb5ac0a99a22dad2d15f8 < 82f433e8dd0629e16681edf6039d094b5518d8ed
Linux · Linuxaffected 6.3 ; unaffected 0 < 6.3 ; unaffected 6.1.127 ≤ 6.1.* ; unaffected 6.6.74 ≤ 6.6.* ; unaffected 6.12.11 ≤ 6.12.* ; unaffected 6.13 ≤ *

Sources

SourceLicence
CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5)CVE Program Terms of Use
EPSS (FIRST.org)FIRST — attribution requested
ENISA EUVDENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged
CERT-FR (ANSSI)Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0
NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feedsPublic domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD