IM
IronMonkey Threat Research

CVE-2025-38691 MEDIUM

Published: 2025-09-04 | Last Modified: 2026-05-12 | Status: Modified

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: pNFS: Fix uninited ptr deref in block/scsi layout The error occurs on the third attempt to encode extents. When function ext_tree_prepare_commit() reallocates a larger buffer to retry encoding extents, the "layoutupdate_pages" page array is initialized only after the retry loop. But ext_tree_free_commitdata() is called on every iteration and tries to put pages in the array, thus dereferencing uninitialized pointers. An additional problem is that there is no limit on the maximum possible buffer_size. When there are too many extents, the client may create a layoutcommit that is larger than the maximum possible RPC size accepted by the server. During testing, we observed two typical scenarios. First, one memory page for extents is enough when we work with small files, append data to the end of the file, or preallocate extents before writing. But when we fill a new large file without preallocating, the number of extents can be huge, and counting the number of written extents in ext_tree_encode_commit() does not help much. Since this number increases even more between unlocking and locking of ext_tree, the reallocated buffer may not be large enough again and again.

CVSS Metrics

Base Score: 5.5 (MEDIUM)

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack VectorLOCAL
Attack ComplexityLOW
Privileges RequiredLOW
User InteractionNONE
ScopeUNCHANGED
Confidentiality ImpactNONE
Integrity ImpactNONE
Availability ImpactHIGH

Source: [email protected]

Type: Primary

Exploitability Score: 1.8

Impact Score: 3.6

Weaknesses

Source Type Description
[email protected] Primary
en CWE-908

Affected Products

Vendor Product Version Update Type
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x702bdc9f6e40> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x702bdc9f4640> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x702bdd6a5dc0> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x702bdc3f5000> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x702bdc9f5680> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x702bdc9f7940> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x702bdd6a7d00> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x702bdc9f5e00> Operating System
debian debian_linux 11.0 <built-in method update of dict object at 0x702bdc9f5f00> Operating System

Affected Configurations

Operator: OR

Vulnerable CPE
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

Operator: OR

Vulnerable CPE
Yes cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:11.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References

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