CVE Details
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
iommu/vt-d: Fix suspicious RCU usage
Commit ("iommu/vt-d: Allocate DMAR fault interrupts
locally") moved the call to enable_drhd_fault_handling() to a code
path that does not hold any lock while traversing the drhd list. Fix
it by ensuring the dmar_global_lock lock is held when traversing the
drhd list.
Without this fix, the following warning is triggered:
=============================
WARNING: suspicious RCU usage
6.14.0-rc3 #55 Not tainted
-----------------------------
drivers/iommu/intel/dmar.c:2046 RCU-list traversed in non-reader section!!
other info that might help us debug this:
rcu_scheduler_active = 1, debug_locks = 1
2 locks held by cpuhp/1/23:
#0: ffffffff84a67c50 (cpu_hotplug_lock){++++}-{0:0}, at: cpuhp_thread_fun+0x87/0x2c0
#1: ffffffff84a6a380 (cpuhp_state-up){+.+.}-{0:0}, at: cpuhp_thread_fun+0x87/0x2c0
stack backtrace:
CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 23 Comm: cpuhp/1 Not tainted 6.14.0-rc3 #55
Call Trace:
dump_stack_lvl+0xb7/0xd0
lockdep_rcu_suspicious+0x159/0x1f0
? __pfx_enable_drhd_fault_handling+0x10/0x10
enable_drhd_fault_handling+0x151/0x180
cpuhp_invoke_callback+0x1df/0x990
cpuhp_thread_fun+0x1ea/0x2c0
smpboot_thread_fn+0x1f5/0x2e0
? __pfx_smpboot_thread_fn+0x10/0x10
kthread+0x12a/0x2d0
? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10
ret_from_fork+0x4a/0x60
? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10
ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30
Holding the lock in enable_drhd_fault_handling() triggers a lockdep splat
about a possible deadlock between dmar_global_lock and cpu_hotplug_lock.
This is avoided by not holding dmar_global_lock when calling
iommu_device_register(), which initiates the device probe process.
See more information about CVE-2025-21876 from MITRE CVE dictionary and NIST NVD
NOTE: The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 metrics
| Base Score: | 5.5 |
| Vector String: | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
| Version: | 3.1 |
| Attack Vector: | Local |
| Attack Complexity: | Low |
| Privileges Required: | Low |
| User Interaction: | None |
| Scope: | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality Impact: | None |
| Integrity Impact: | None |
| Availability Impact: | High |
Errata information
| Platform | Errata | Release Date |
| Oracle Linux version 10 (kernel-uek) | ELSA-2025-20480 | 2025-07-17 |
| Oracle Linux version 9 (kernel-uek) | ELSA-2025-20480 | 2025-07-17 |
