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CVE-2025-68319
netconsole: Acquire su_mutex before navigating configs hierarchy
Published 2025-12-16 (10 months ago) by the Linux kernel CNA. Subsystem drivers/net. Debian urgency: unimportant.
What to do, per Debian release
Debian's own status for CVE-2025-68319 in every release this site tracks, and what each one means in practice. Every status below is the one the Debian Security Team publishes for this CVE. source
| Release | Status | Version | What this means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 12bookworm | not affected | 6.1.190-1 | Nothing to do. bookworm never shipped the vulnerable code. |
| Debian 13trixie | vulnerable | 6.12.113-1 | No fix published anywhere yet, neither in Debian nor upstream for the series trixie tracks. Watch the Debian tracker page for this CVE. Advisories for trixie have historically landed a median of 11 days after publication. |
| Debian 14forky | fixed | 6.17.8-1 | Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 6.17.8-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts. |
| Debian unstablesid | fixed | 6.17.8-1 | Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 6.17.8-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts. |
The vulnerability
What the bug is
There is a race between operations that iterate over the userdata cg_children list and concurrent add/remove of userdata items through configfs. The update_userdata() function iterates over the nt->userdata_group.cg_children list, and count_extradata_entries() also iterates over this same list to count nodes. Quoting from Documentation/filesystems/configfs.rst: > A subsystem can navigate the cg_children list and the ci_parent pointer > to see the tree created by the subsystem. This can race with configfs' > management of the hierarchy, so configfs uses the subsystem mutex to > protect modifications. Whenever a subsystem wants to navigate the > hierarchy, it must do so under the protection of the subsystem > mutex. Without proper locking, if a userdata item is added or removed concurrently while these functions are iterating, the list can be accessed in an inconsistent state. For example, the list_for_each() loop can reach a node that is being removed from the list by list_del_init() which sets the nodes' .next pointer to point to itself, so the loop will never end (or reach the WARN_ON_ONCE in update_userdata() ). Fix this by holding the configfs subsystem mutex (su_mutex) during all operations that iterate over cg_children. This includes: - userdatum_value_store() which calls update_userdata() to iterate over cg_children - All sysdata_*_enabled_store() functions which call count_extradata_entries() to iterate over cg_children The su_mutex must be acquired before dynamic_netconsole_mutex to avoid potential lock ordering issues, as configfs operations may already hold su_mutex when calling into our code.
Where it lives
The fix touches these files. If the subsystem is one you do not use, the practical exposure is lower, though the package is still the vulnerable one.
drivers/net/netconsole.c
- What this is
- NETCONSOLEMAINTAINERS section matched on drivers/net/netconsole.c · Maintained
- Kernel module
- netconsole
Check it on the machine
grep -w CONFIG_NETCONSOLE /boot/config-$(uname -r)Reads the booted kernel's own configuration, on the machine and nowhere else. =y is built in, =m is a module, and an is not set line means the code is not there.
lsmod | grep -w netconsolePrints a line if that module is loaded right now, and nothing if it is not. One that is not loaded can still be loaded later by anything that needs it.
Show whether Debian builds this, per release
Debian builds this as a loadable module. Every release below compiles it as a module on every flavour, so whether the code is in the running kernel depends on whether that module is loaded.
- bookworm, trixie, forky, sidm
- m
- a loadable module on every flavour - check lsmod, can be blacklisted
- Build switch
- CONFIG_NETCONSOLE
From the configuration Debian publishes for every kernel flavour it builds. It covers only the architectures Debian ships a linux-config package for, and nothing about a kernel you built yourself. Debian's own status above stays authoritative about the source package.MAINTAINERS kbuild Makefiles Debian linux-config packages
Signals
- Published
- 2025-12-16 (10 months ago)source
- CVSS
- no vector published, unrated
- Attack vector
- not published
- EPSS
- 0.18%, higher than 6.6% of all CVEssource
- CISA KEV
- not listedthe KEV catalogue
- Debian urgency
- unimportantsource
- Subsystem
- drivers/net
Upstream fixes
The versions the CNA records as introducing and fixing this, and the commit for each. source
| Introduced | Fixed in | Commit |
|---|---|---|
| 6.9 | 6.17.8 | ff70aa7e8cf0 |
| 6.9 | 6.18 | d7d2fcf7ae31 |
Why the CNA scored it this way
The kernel CNA published no CVSS vector and no reasoning for CVE-2025-68319, which is why it is shown as unrated rather than given an invented score. 6,405 of the 20,413 CVEs here carry reasoning; this is not one of them.