Linux Kernel up to 6.13.4/6.14-rc3 nvmet submit_bio null pointer dereference

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.13.4/6.14-rc3. It has been classified as critical. This affects the function submit_bio of the component nvmet. This manipulation causes null pointer dereference. This vulnerability is handled as CVE-2025-21850. There is not any exploit available. Upgrading the affected component is recommended.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.13.4/6.14-rc3. Affected by this vulnerability is the function submit_bio of the component nvmet. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a null pointer dereference vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-476. A NULL pointer dereference occurs when the application dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid, but is NULL, typically causing a crash or exit. As an impact it is known to affect availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nvmet: Fix crash when a namespace is disabled The namespace percpu counter protects pending I/O, and we can only safely diable the namespace once the counter drop to zero. Otherwise we end up with a crash when running blktests/nvme/058 (eg for loop transport): [ 2352.930426] [ T53909] Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000005: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN PTI [ 2352.930431] [ T53909] KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000028-0x000000000000002f] [ 2352.930434] [ T53909] CPU: 3 UID: 0 PID: 53909 Comm: kworker/u16:5 Tainted: G W 6.13.0-rc6 #232 [ 2352.930438] [ T53909] Tainted: [W]=WARN [ 2352.930440] [ T53909] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.16.3-3.fc41 04/01/2014 [ 2352.930443] [ T53909] Workqueue: nvmet-wq nvme_loop_execute_work [nvme_loop] [ 2352.930449] [ T53909] RIP: 0010:blkcg_set_ioprio+0x44/0x180 as the queue is already torn down when calling submit_bio(); So we need to init the percpu counter in nvmet_ns_enable(), and wait for it to drop to zero in nvmet_ns_disable() to avoid having I/O pending after the namespace has been disabled.

The advisory is shared at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2025-21850 since 12/29/2024. The exploitation appears to be difficult. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available.

Upgrading to version 6.13.5 or 6.14-rc4 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch cc0607594f6813342b27c752c6fb6f6eb9980cb5/4082326807072b71496501b6a0c55ffe8d5092a5 is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at git.kernel.org. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-0545). Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Affected

• Google Container-Optimized OS
• Debian Linux
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• Siemens SIMATIC S7
• RESF Rocky Linux
• SolarWinds Security Event Manager
• Open Source Linux Kernel

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.13.0
• 6.13.1
• 6.13.2
• 6.13.3
• 6.13.4
• 6.14-rc1
• 6.14-rc2
• 6.14-rc3

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Entryinfo

Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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