CVE-2025-38017

Summary

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].

Affected Software

Weaknesses

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7631dca012593c95d36199082546a24a0058fc50
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d9ec73301099ec5975505e1c3effbe768bab9490

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