Vulnerability Details CVE-2025-37953
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
sch_htb: make htb_deactivate() idempotent
Alan reported a NULL pointer dereference in htb_next_rb_node()
after we made htb_qlen_notify() idempotent.
It turns out in the following case it introduced some regression:
htb_dequeue_tree():
|-> fq_codel_dequeue()
|-> qdisc_tree_reduce_backlog()
|-> htb_qlen_notify()
|-> htb_deactivate()
|-> htb_next_rb_node()
|-> htb_deactivate()
For htb_next_rb_node(), after calling the 1st htb_deactivate(), the
clprio[prio]->ptr could be already set to NULL, which means
htb_next_rb_node() is vulnerable here.
For htb_deactivate(), although we checked qlen before calling it, in
case of qlen==0 after qdisc_tree_reduce_backlog(), we may call it again
which triggers the warning inside.
To fix the issues here, we need to:
1) Make htb_deactivate() idempotent, that is, simply return if we
already call it before.
2) Make htb_next_rb_node() safe against ptr==NULL.
Many thanks to Alan for testing and for the reproducer.
Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score
EPSS Score 0.0
EPSS Ranking 8.8%
CVSS Severity
CVSS v3 Score 5.5
Products affected by CVE-2025-37953
-
cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:11.0
-
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.1.138
-
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.12.28
-
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.14.6
-
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.15
-
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.6.90