UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38349
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: eventpoll: don't decrement ep refcount while still holding the ep mutex Jann Horn points out that epoll is decrementing the ep refcount and then doing a mutex_unlock(&ep->mtx); afterwards. That's very wrong, because it can lead to a use-after-free. That pattern is actually fine for the very last reference, because the code in question will delay the actual call to "ep_free(ep)" until after it has unlocked the mutex. But it's wrong for the much subtler "next to last" case when somebody *else* may also be dropping their reference and free the ep while we're still using the mutex. Note that this is true even if that other user is also using the same ep mutex: mutexes, unlike spinlocks, can not be used for object ownership, even if they guarantee mutual exclusion. A mutex "unlock" operation is not atomic, and as one user is still accessing the mutex as part of unlocking it, another user can come in and get the now released mutex and free the data structure while the first user is still cleaning up. See our mutex documentation in Documentation/locking/mutex-design.rst, in particular the section [1] about semantics: "mutex_unlock() may access the mutex structure even after it has internally released the lock already - so it's not safe for another context to acquire the mutex and assume that the mutex_unlock() context is not using the structure anymore" So if we drop our ep ref before the mutex unlock, but we weren't the last one, we may then unlock the mutex, another user comes in, drops _their_ reference and releases the 'ep' as it now has no users - all while the mutex_unlock() is still accessing it. Fix this by simply moving the ep refcount dropping to outside the mutex: the refcount itself is atomic, and doesn't need mutex protection (that's the whole _point_ of refcounts: unlike mutexes, they are inherently about object lifetimes).
02 / AFFECTED SOFTWARE
Affected packages
11 explicit affected versions
89 explicit affected versions
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12 explicit affected versions
32 explicit affected versions
11 explicit affected versions
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10 explicit affected versions
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26 explicit affected versions
31 explicit affected versions
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26 explicit affected versions
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37 explicit affected versions
16 explicit affected versions
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3 explicit affected versions
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10 explicit affected versions
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37 explicit affected versions
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13 explicit affected versions
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10 explicit affected versions
12 explicit affected versions
7 explicit affected versions
44 explicit affected versions
16 explicit affected versions
3 explicit affected versions
13 explicit affected versions
26 explicit affected versions
45 explicit affected versions
37 explicit affected versions
42 explicit affected versions
14 explicit affected versions
38 explicit affected versions
9 explicit affected versions
11 explicit affected versions
4 explicit affected versions
30 explicit affected versions
13 explicit affected versions
92 explicit affected versions
8 explicit affected versions
7 explicit affected versions
81 explicit affected versions
1 explicit affected versions
80 explicit affected versions
79 explicit affected versions
13 explicit affected versions
43 explicit affected versions
10 explicit affected versions
8 explicit affected versions
36 explicit affected versions
14 explicit affected versions
4 explicit affected versions
78 explicit affected versions
11 explicit affected versions
1 explicit affected versions
10 explicit affected versions
30 explicit affected versions
03 / CONNECTIONS
Connected vulnerabilities
04 / EVIDENCE
Source records
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: eventpoll: don't decrement ep refcount while still holding the ep mutex Jann Horn points out that epoll is decrementing the ep refcount and then doing a mutex_unlock(&ep->mtx); afterwards. That's very wrong, because it can lead to a use-after-free. That pattern is actually fine for the very last reference, because the code in question will delay the actual call to "ep_free(ep)" until after it has unlocked the mutex. But it's wrong for the much subtler "next to last" case when somebody *else* may also be dropping their reference and free the ep while we're still using the mutex. Note that this is true even if that other user is also using the same ep mutex: mutexes, unlike spinlocks, can not be used for object ownership, even if they guarantee mutual exclusion. A mutex "unlock" operation is not atomic, and as one user is still accessing the mutex as part of unlocking it, another user can come in and get the now released mutex and free the data structure while the first user is still cleaning up. See our mutex documentation in Documentation/locking/mutex-design.rst, in particular the section [1] about semantics: "mutex_unlock() may access the mutex structure even after it has internally released the lock already - so it's not safe for another context to acquire the mutex and assume that the mutex_unlock() context is not using the structure anymore" So if we drop our ep ref before the mutex unlock, but we weren't the last one, we may then unlock the mutex, another user comes in, drops _their_ reference and releases the 'ep' as it now has no users - all while the mutex_unlock() is still accessing it. Fix this by simply moving the ep refcount dropping to outside the mutex: the refcount itself is atomic, and doesn't need mutex protection (that's the whole _point_ of refcounts: unlike mutexes, they are inherently about object lifetimes).
05 / REFERENCES
Further evidence
- https://git.kernel.org/linus/8c2e52ebbe885c7eeaabd3b7ddcdc1246fc400d2
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/521e9ff0b67c66a17d6f9593dfccafaa984aae4c
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/605c18698ecfa99165f36b7f59d3ed503e169814
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6dee745bd0aec9d399df674256e7b1ecdb615444
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8c2e52ebbe885c7eeaabd3b7ddcdc1246fc400d2
- https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-38349
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-7879-1
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-7879-2
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-7879-3
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-7879-4
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-7880-1
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-7934-1
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8028-1
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8028-2
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8028-3
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8028-4
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8028-5
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8028-6
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8028-7
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8028-8
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8031-1
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8031-2
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8031-3
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8052-1
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8052-2
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8074-1
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8074-2
- https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8126-1
- https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-38349