Description

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 r...

Classification

CVE ID: CVE-2025-38232

Affected Products

Vendor: Linux

Product: Linux

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

EPSS Score: 0.02% (probability of being exploited)

EPSS Percentile: 2.46% (scored less or equal to compared to others)

EPSS Date: 2025-07-06 (when was this score calculated)

References

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-38232
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2029ca75cdfa6a25716a5a76b751486cce7e3822
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/327011a2bb4f7de9c72b891a96ce8d902828bddf
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f7fb730cac9aafda8b9813b55d04e28a9664d17c

Timeline