CVE-2025-38232
MediumCVSS 4.7Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk3th percentile - higher than 3% of all known CVEs
Summary
A race condition in the Linux kernel between NFSD registration and /proc/fs/nfsd operations causes a NULL pointer dereference and kernel OOPS. Concurrent execution of exportfs -r and mount/umount of /proc/fs/nfsd triggers the bug in both older (5.4) and latest (6.14) kernels.
Risk Assessment
An attacker or careless administrator can crash the system (kernel panic) by simultaneously running NFS exports and manipulating the /proc/fs/nfsd mount point. This disrupts NFS services and may lead to data unavailability.
Recommendation
Apply the kernel patch that moves /proc/fs/nfsd creation to the end of NFSD initialization and its removal to the beginning of deinitialization. Reboot after updating the kernel.
Original NVD description (English source)
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: NFSD: fix race between nfsd registration and exports_proc As of now nfsd calls create_proc_exports_entry() at start of init_nfsd and cleanup by remove_proc_entry() at last of exit_nfsd. Which causes kernel OOPs if there is race between below 2 operations: (i) exportfs -r (ii) mount -t nfsd none /proc/fs/nfsd for 5.4 kernel ARM64: CPU 1: el1_irq+0xbc/0x180 arch_counter_get_cntvct+0x14/0x18 running_clock+0xc/0x18 preempt_count_add+0x88/0x110 prep_new_page+0xb0/0x220 get_page_from_freelist+0x2d8/0x1778 __alloc_pages_nodemask+0x15c/0xef0 __vmalloc_node_range+0x28c/0x478 __vmalloc_node_flags_caller+0x8c/0xb0 kvmalloc_node+0x88/0xe0 nfsd_init_net+0x6c/0x108 [nfsd] ops_init+0x44/0x170 register_pernet_operations+0x114/0x270 register_pernet_subsys+0x34/0x50 init_nfsd+0xa8/0x718 [nfsd] do_one_initcall+0x54/0x2e0 CPU 2 : Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 0000000000000010 PC is at : exports_net_open+0x50/0x68 [nfsd] Call trace: exports_net_open+0x50/0x68 [nfsd] exports_proc_open+0x2c/0x38 [nfsd] proc_reg_open+0xb8/0x198 do_dentry_open+0x1c4/0x418 vfs_open+0x38/0x48 path_openat+0x28c/0xf18 do_filp_open+0x70/0xe8 do_sys_open+0x154/0x248 Sometimes it crashes at exports_net_open() and sometimes cache_seq_next_rcu(). and same is happening on latest 6.14 kernel as well: [ 0.000000] Linux version 6.14.0-rc5-next-20250304-dirty ... [ 285.455918] Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 00001f4800001f48 ... [ 285.464902] pc : cache_seq_next_rcu+0x78/0xa4 ... [ 285.469695] Call trace: [ 285.470083] cache_seq_next_rcu+0x78/0xa4 (P) [ 285.470488] seq_read+0xe0/0x11c [ 285.470675] proc_reg_read+0x9c/0xf0 [ 285.470874] vfs_read+0xc4/0x2fc [ 285.471057] ksys_read+0x6c/0xf4 [ 285.471231] __arm64_sys_read+0x1c/0x28 [ 285.471428] invoke_syscall+0x44/0x100 [ 285.471633] el0_svc_common.constprop.0+0x40/0xe0 [ 285.471870] do_el0_svc_compat+0x1c/0x34 [ 285.472073] el0_svc_compat+0x2c/0x80 [ 285.472265] el0t_32_sync_handler+0x90/0x140 [ 285.472473] el0t_32_sync+0x19c/0x1a0 [ 285.472887] Code: f9400885 93407c23 937d7c27 11000421 (f86378a3) [ 285.473422] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- It reproduced simply with below script: while [ 1 ] do /exportfs -r done & while [ 1 ] do insmod /nfsd.ko mount -t nfsd none /proc/fs/nfsd umount /proc/fs/nfsd rmmod nfsd done & So exporting interfaces to user space shall be done at last and cleanup at first place. With change there is no Kernel OOPs.