Bug 2373374 (CVE-2025-38017) - CVE-2025-38017 kernel: fs/eventpoll: fix endless busy loop after timeout has expired
Summary: CVE-2025-38017 kernel: fs/eventpoll: fix endless busy loop after timeout has ...
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2025-38017
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security DevOps Team
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2025-06-18 10:04 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2025-06-20 16:40 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-06-18 10:04:17 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

fs/eventpoll: fix endless busy loop after timeout has expired

After commit 0a65bc27bd64 ("eventpoll: Set epoll timeout if it's in
the future"), the following program would immediately enter a busy
loop in the kernel:

```
int main() {
  int e = epoll_create1(0);
  struct epoll_event event = {.events = EPOLLIN};
  epoll_ctl(e, EPOLL_CTL_ADD, 0, &event);
  const struct timespec timeout = {.tv_nsec = 1};
  epoll_pwait2(e, &event, 1, &timeout, 0);
}
```

This happens because the given (non-zero) timeout of 1 nanosecond
usually expires before ep_poll() is entered and then
ep_schedule_timeout() returns false, but `timed_out` is never set
because the code line that sets it is skipped.  This quickly turns
into a soft lockup, RCU stalls and deadlocks, inflicting severe
headaches to the whole system.

When the timeout has expired, we don't need to schedule a hrtimer, but
we should set the `timed_out` variable.  Therefore, I suggest moving
the ep_schedule_timeout() check into the `timed_out` expression
instead of skipping it.

brauner: Note that there was an earlier fix by Joe Damato in response to
my bug report in [1].

Comment 1 Avinash Hanwate 2025-06-20 16:32:54 UTC
Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2025061844-CVE-2025-38017-16a2@gregkh/T


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