Bug 2394644 (CVE-2025-39736)

Summary: CVE-2025-39736 kernel: mm/kmemleak: avoid deadlock by moving pr_warn() outside kmemleak_lock
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: low    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-09-11 17:04:22 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

mm/kmemleak: avoid deadlock by moving pr_warn() outside kmemleak_lock

When netpoll is enabled, calling pr_warn_once() while holding
kmemleak_lock in mem_pool_alloc() can cause a deadlock due to lock
inversion with the netconsole subsystem.  This occurs because
pr_warn_once() may trigger netpoll, which eventually leads to
__alloc_skb() and back into kmemleak code, attempting to reacquire
kmemleak_lock.

This is the path for the deadlock.

mem_pool_alloc()
  -> raw_spin_lock_irqsave(&kmemleak_lock, flags);
      -> pr_warn_once()
          -> netconsole subsystem
	     -> netpoll
	         -> __alloc_skb
		   -> __create_object
		     -> raw_spin_lock_irqsave(&kmemleak_lock, flags);

Fix this by setting a flag and issuing the pr_warn_once() after
kmemleak_lock is released.