Public vulnerability disclosure

CVE-2025-38311

iavf: get rid of the crit lock

published

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: iavf: get rid of the crit lock Get rid of the crit lock. That frees us from the error prone logic of try_locks. Thanks to netdev_lock() by Jakub it is now easy, and in most cases we were protected by it already - replace crit lock by netdev lock when it was not the case. Lockdep reports that we should cancel the work under crit_lock [splat1], and that was the scheme we have mostly followed since [1] by Slawomir. But when that is done we still got into deadlocks [splat2]. So instead we should look at the bigger problem, namely "weird locking/scheduling" of the iavf. The first step to fix that is to remove the crit lock. I will followup with a -next series that simplifies scheduling/tasks. Cancel the work without netdev lock (weird unlock+lock scheme), to fix the [splat2] (which would be totally ugly if we would kept the crit lock). Extend protected part of iavf_watchdog_task() to include scheduling more work. Note that the removed comment in iavf_reset_task() was misplaced, it belonged to inside of the removed if condition, so it's gone now. [splat1] - w/o this patch - The deadlock during VF removal: WARNING: possible circular locking dependency detected sh/3825 is trying to acquire lock: ((work_completion)(&(&adapter->watchdog_task)->work)){+.+.}-{0:0}, at: start_flush_work+0x1a1/0x470 but task is already holding lock: (&adapter->crit_lock){+.+.}-{4:4}, at: iavf_remove+0xd1/0x690 [iavf] which lock already depends on the new lock. [splat2] - when cancelling work under crit lock, w/o this series, see [2] for the band aid attempt WARNING: possible circular locking dependency detected sh/3550 is trying to acquire lock: ((wq_completion)iavf){+.+.}-{0:0}, at: touch_wq_lockdep_map+0x26/0x90 but task is already holding lock: (&dev->lock){+.+.}-{4:4}, at: iavf_remove+0xa6/0x6e0 [iavf] which lock already depends on the new lock. [1] fc2e6b3b132a ("iavf: Rework mutexes for better synchronisation") [2] https://github.com/pkitszel/linux/commit/52dddbfc2bb60294083f5711a158a

Technical severityUnscoredNo score in collected sources
Published2025-07-10Source updated 2026-11-05
Collected2026-11-052 attributed sources

Fixes and workarounds

No remediation reported in collected sources.

Missing remediation information is not evidence that no patch exists.

Affected products and versions

Affected products, source version ranges and reporting authorities
ProductVersionsAuthority
Linux
Linux
≥ d1639a17319ba78a018280cd2df6577a7e5d9fab; < 620ab4d6215de0b25227f9fff1a8c7fb66837cb8 (affected, git)
≥ d1639a17319ba78a018280cd2df6577a7e5d9fab; < 120f28a6f314fef7f282c99f196923fe44081cad (affected, git)
2647ff59c52ef42c853c905817ed1a7f092d59a5 (affected, git)
63d14a43128540016ebd4f7fa3ad3a2f0d6e642c (affected, git)
≥ 6.1.42; < 6.2 (affected, semver)
≥ 6.4.7; < 6.5 (affected, semver)
Other versions: unaffected
CNA: Linux
Linux
Linux
6.5 (affected)
≥ 0; < 6.5 (unaffected, semver)
≥ 6.15.3; ≤ 6.15.* (unaffected, semver)
≥ 6.16; ≤ * (unaffected, original_commit_for_fix)
Other versions: affected
CNA: Linux

Version ranges are source assertions. Check the vendor advisory and your installed configuration before determining exposure.

CVSS assessments

No CVSS assessment reported. An unscored record is not a low-severity determination.

Exploit evidence

No exploit evidence in collected sources. This is not proof of no exploitation.

References

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