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CVE-2025-40260 Not scored

sched_ext: Fix scx_enable() crash on helper kthread creation failure

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sched_ext: Fix scx_enable() crash on helper kthread creation failure A crash was observed when the sched_ext selftests runner was terminated with Ctrl+\ while test 15 was running: NIP [c00000000028fa58] scx_enable.constprop.0+0x358/0x12b0 LR [c00000000028fa2c] scx_enable.constprop.0+0x32c/0x12b0 Call Trace: scx_enable.constprop.0+0x32c/0x12b0 (unreliable) bpf_struct_ops_link_create+0x18c/0x22c __sys_bpf+0x23f8/0x3044 sys_bpf+0x2c/0x6c system_call_exception+0x124/0x320 system_call_vectored_common+0x15c/0x2ec kthread_run_worker() returns an ERR_PTR() on failure rather than NULL, but the current code in scx_alloc_and_add_sched() only checks for a NULL helper. Incase of failure on SIGQUIT, the error is not handled in scx_alloc_and_add_sched() and scx_enable() ends up dereferencing an error pointer. Error handling is fixed in scx_alloc_and_add_sched() to propagate PTR_ERR() into ret, so that scx_enable() jumps to the existing error path, avoiding random dereference on failure.

Exploit probability 0.2%
Published December 4, 2025
Required by Not available
Last source change August 12, 2026

02 / AFFECTED SOFTWARE

Affected packages

Linux Kernel
Unknown Unknown

04 / EVIDENCE

Source records

Open Source Vulnerabilities CVE-2025-40260

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sched_ext: Fix scx_enable() crash on helper kthread creation failure A crash was observed when the sched_ext selftests runner was terminated with Ctrl+\ while test 15 was running: NIP [c00000000028fa58] scx_enable.constprop.0+0x358/0x12b0 LR [c00000000028fa2c] scx_enable.constprop.0+0x32c/0x12b0 Call Trace: scx_enable.constprop.0+0x32c/0x12b0 (unreliable) bpf_struct_ops_link_create+0x18c/0x22c __sys_bpf+0x23f8/0x3044 sys_bpf+0x2c/0x6c system_call_exception+0x124/0x320 system_call_vectored_common+0x15c/0x2ec kthread_run_worker() returns an ERR_PTR() on failure rather than NULL, but the current code in scx_alloc_and_add_sched() only checks for a NULL helper. Incase of failure on SIGQUIT, the error is not handled in scx_alloc_and_add_sched() and scx_enable() ends up dereferencing an error pointer. Error handling is fixed in scx_alloc_and_add_sched() to propagate PTR_ERR() into ret, so that scx_enable() jumps to the existing error path, avoiding random dereference on failure.

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05 / REFERENCES

Further evidence