Linux Kernel up to 5.18.17/5.19.1 tty gsm_data_kick recursion

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability classified as problematic was found in Linux Kernel up to 5.18.17/5.19.1. Affected by this vulnerability is the function gsm_data_kick of the component tty. Such manipulation leads to recursion. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2022-50116. No exploit exists. Upgrading the affected component is advised.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 5.18.17/5.19.1. It has been rated as problematic. Affected by this issue is the function gsm_data_kick of the component tty. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a recursion vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-674. The product does not properly control the amount of recursion that takes place, consuming excessive resources, such as allocated memory or the program stack. The impact remains unknown. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tty: n_gsm: fix deadlock and link starvation in outgoing data path The current implementation queues up new control and user packets as needed and processes this queue down to the ldisc in the same code path. That means that the upper and the lower layer are hard coupled in the code. Due to this deadlocks can happen as seen below while transmitting data, especially during ldisc congestion. Furthermore, the data channels starve the control channel on high transmission load on the ldisc. Introduce an additional control channel data queue to prevent timeouts and link hangups during ldisc congestion. This is being processed before the user channel data queue in gsm_data_kick(), i.e. with the highest priority. Put the queue to ldisc data path into a workqueue and trigger it whenever new data has been put into the transmission queue. Change gsm_dlci_data_sweep() accordingly to fill up the transmission queue until TX_THRESH_HI. This solves the locking issue, keeps latency low and provides good performance on high data load. Note that now all packets from a DLCI are removed from the internal queue if the associated DLCI was closed. This ensures that no data is sent by the introduced write task to an already closed DLCI. BUG: spinlock recursion on CPU#0, test_v24_loop/124 lock: serial8250_ports+0x3a8/0x7500, .magic: dead4ead, .owner: test_v24_loop/124, .owner_cpu: 0 CPU: 0 PID: 124 Comm: test_v24_loop Tainted: G O 5.18.0-rc2 #3 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.15.0-1 04/01/2014 Call Trace: <IRQ> dump_stack_lvl+0x34/0x44 do_raw_spin_lock+0x76/0xa0 _raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0x72/0x80 uart_write_room+0x3b/0xc0 gsm_data_kick+0x14b/0x240 [n_gsm] gsmld_write_wakeup+0x35/0x70 [n_gsm] tty_wakeup+0x53/0x60 tty_port_default_wakeup+0x1b/0x30 serial8250_tx_chars+0x12f/0x220 serial8250_handle_irq.part.0+0xfe/0x150 serial8250_default_handle_irq+0x48/0x80 serial8250_interrupt+0x56/0xa0 __handle_irq_event_percpu+0x78/0x1f0 handle_irq_event+0x34/0x70 handle_fasteoi_irq+0x90/0x1e0 __common_interrupt+0x69/0x100 common_interrupt+0x48/0xc0 asm_common_interrupt+0x1e/0x40 RIP: 0010:__do_softirq+0x83/0x34e Code: 2a 0a ff 0f b7 ed c7 44 24 10 0a 00 00 00 48 c7 c7 51 2a 64 82 e8 2d e2 d5 ff 65 66 c7 05 83 af 1e 7e 00 00 fb b8 ff ff ff ff <49> c7 c2 40 61 80 82 0f bc c5 41 89 c4 41 83 c4 01 0f 84 e6 00 00 RSP: 0018:ffffc90000003f98 EFLAGS: 00000286 RAX: 00000000ffffffff RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 0000000000000000 RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: ffffffff82642a51 RDI: ffffffff825bb5e7 RBP: 0000000000000200 R08: 00000008de3271a8 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: 0000000000000001 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: 0000000000000000 R13: 0000000000000030 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: 0000000000000000 ? __do_softirq+0x73/0x34e irq_exit_rcu+0xb5/0x100 common_interrupt+0xa4/0xc0 </IRQ> <TASK> asm_common_interrupt+0x1e/0x40 RIP: 0010:_raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore+0x2e/0x50 Code: 00 55 48 89 fd 48 83 c7 18 53 48 89 f3 48 8b 74 24 10 e8 85 28 36 ff 48 89 ef e8 cd 58 36 ff 80 e7 02 74 01 fb bf 01 00 00 00 <e8> 3d 97 33 ff 65 8b 05 96 23 2b 7e 85 c0 74 03 5b 5d c3 0f 1f 44 RSP: 0018:ffffc9000020fd08 EFLAGS: 00000202 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 0000000000000246 RCX: 0000000000000000 RDX: 0000000000000004 RSI: ffffffff8257fd74 RDI: 0000000000000001 RBP: ffff8880057de3a0 R08: 00000008de233000 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: 0000000000000001 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: 0000000000000000 R13: 0000000000000100 R14: 0000000000000202 R15: ffff8880057df0b8 ? _raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore+0x23/0x50 gsmtty_write+0x65/0x80 [n_gsm] n_tty_write+0x33f/0x530 ? swake_up_all+0xe0/0xe0 file_tty_write.constprop.0+0x1b1/0x320 ? n_tty_flush_buffer+0xb0/0xb0 new_sync_write+0x10c/0x190 vfs_write+0x282/0x310 ksys_write+0x68/0xe0 do_syscall_64+0x3b/0x90 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae RIP: 0033:0x7f3e5e35c15c Code: 8b 7c 24 08 89 c5 e8 c5 ff ff ff 89 ef 89 44 24 ---truncated---

The advisory is available at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is handled as CVE-2022-50116 since 06/18/2025. The exploitation is known to be difficult. Technical details are known, but there is no available exploit.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 250044 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2022-50116), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 5.18.18 or 5.19.2 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch c165698c9919b000bdbe73859d3bb7b33bdb9223/7962a4b900099cf90e02859bb297f2c618d8d940/0af021678d5d30c31f5a6b631f404ead3575212a 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 databases at Tenable (250044) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-1350). If you want to get best quality of vulnerability data, you may have to visit VulDB.

Affected

• Debian Linux
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• SUSE openSUSE
• Open Source Linux Kernel
• RESF Rocky Linux
• Dell Avamar
• Dell NetWorker
• Dell Secure Connect Gateway
• IBM QRadar SIEM

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 5.18.0
• 5.18.1
• 5.18.2
• 5.18.3
• 5.18.4
• 5.18.5
• 5.18.6
• 5.18.7
• 5.18.8
• 5.18.9
• 5.18.10
• 5.18.11
• 5.18.12
• 5.18.13
• 5.18.14
• 5.18.15
• 5.18.16
• 5.18.17
• 5.19.0
• 5.19.1

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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CVSSv4info

CVSSv3info

CVSSv2info

Exploitinginfo

Threat Intelligenceinfo

Countermeasuresinfo

Timelineinfo

Sourcesinfo

Entryinfo

If you want to get best quality of vulnerability data, you may have to visit VulDB.

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