Bug 2395791 (CVE-2025-39813)

Summary: CVE-2025-39813 kernel: Linux kernel: Denial of Service in ftrace due to race condition in trace_printk_seq
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
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Priority: low    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's ftrace subsystem. A local user could trigger a race condition when concurrently performing a trace dump and reading the trace pipe. This could lead to a system warning and potentially result in a Denial of Service (DoS), making the system unavailable.
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-09-16 14:02:44 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ftrace: Fix potential warning in trace_printk_seq during ftrace_dump

When calling ftrace_dump_one() concurrently with reading trace_pipe,
a WARN_ON_ONCE() in trace_printk_seq() can be triggered due to a race
condition.

The issue occurs because:

CPU0 (ftrace_dump)                              CPU1 (reader)
echo z > /proc/sysrq-trigger

!trace_empty(&iter)
trace_iterator_reset(&iter) <- len = size = 0
                                                cat /sys/kernel/tracing/trace_pipe
trace_find_next_entry_inc(&iter)
  __find_next_entry
    ring_buffer_empty_cpu <- all empty
  return NULL

trace_printk_seq(&iter.seq)
  WARN_ON_ONCE(s->seq.len >= s->seq.size)

In the context between trace_empty() and trace_find_next_entry_inc()
during ftrace_dump, the ring buffer data was consumed by other readers.
This caused trace_find_next_entry_inc to return NULL, failing to populate
`iter.seq`. At this point, due to the prior trace_iterator_reset, both
`iter.seq.len` and `iter.seq.size` were set to 0. Since they are equal,
the WARN_ON_ONCE condition is triggered.

Move the trace_printk_seq() into the if block that checks to make sure the
return value of trace_find_next_entry_inc() is non-NULL in
ftrace_dump_one(), ensuring the 'iter.seq' is properly populated before
subsequent operations.