Bug 2388920 (CVE-2025-38537)

Summary: CVE-2025-38537 kernel: net: phy: Don't register LEDs for genphy
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
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Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedKeywords: Security
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OS: Linux   
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-08-16 12:01:22 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net: phy: Don't register LEDs for genphy

If a PHY has no driver, the genphy driver is probed/removed directly in
phy_attach/detach. If the PHY's ofnode has an "leds" subnode, then the
LEDs will be (un)registered when probing/removing the genphy driver.
This could occur if the leds are for a non-generic driver that isn't
loaded for whatever reason. Synchronously removing the PHY device in
phy_detach leads to the following deadlock:

rtnl_lock()
ndo_close()
    ...
    phy_detach()
        phy_remove()
            phy_leds_unregister()
                led_classdev_unregister()
                    led_trigger_set()
                        netdev_trigger_deactivate()
                            unregister_netdevice_notifier()
                                rtnl_lock()

There is a corresponding deadlock on the open/register side of things
(and that one is reported by lockdep), but it requires a race while this
one is deterministic.

Generic PHYs do not support LEDs anyway, so don't bother registering
them.