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Vulnerability Change Records for CVE-2025-38017

Change History

New CVE Received from kernel.org 6/18/2025 6:15:33 AM

Action Type Old Value New Value
Added Description

								
							
							
						
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].
Added Reference

								
							
							
						
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7631dca012593c95d36199082546a24a0058fc50
Added Reference

								
							
							
						
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d9ec73301099ec5975505e1c3effbe768bab9490