Vulnerability Database

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Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2025-38496 — linux / linux_kernel

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

dm-bufio: fix sched in atomic context

If "try_verify_in_tasklet" is set for dm-verity, DM_BUFIO_CLIENT_NO_SLEEP is enabled for dm-bufio. However, when bufio tries to evict buffers, there is a chance to trigger scheduling in spin_lock_bh, the following warning is hit:

BUG: sleeping function called from invalid context at drivers/md/dm-bufio.c:2745 in_atomic(): 1, irqs_disabled(): 0, non_block: 0, pid: 123, name: kworker/2:2 preempt_count: 201, expected: 0 RCU nest depth: 0, expected: 0 4 locks held by kworker/2:2/123: #0: ffff88800a2d1548 ((wq_completion)dm_bufio_cache){....}-{0:0}, at: process_one_work+0xe46/0x1970 #1: ffffc90000d97d20 ((work_completion)(&dm_bufio_replacement_work)){....}-{0:0}, at: process_one_work+0x763/0x1970 #2: ffffffff8555b528 (dm_bufio_clients_lock){....}-{3:3}, at: do_global_cleanup+0x1ce/0x710 #3: ffff88801d5820b8 (&c->spinlock){....}-{2:2}, at: do_global_cleanup+0x2a5/0x710 Preemption disabled at: [<0000000000000000>] 0x0 CPU: 2 UID: 0 PID: 123 Comm: kworker/2:2 Not tainted 6.16.0-rc3-g90548c634bd0 #305 PREEMPT(voluntary) Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.16.3-0-ga6ed6b701f0a-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 Workqueue: dm_bufio_cache do_global_cleanup Call Trace: <TASK> dump_stack_lvl+0x53/0x70 __might_resched+0x360/0x4e0 do_global_cleanup+0x2f5/0x710 process_one_work+0x7db/0x1970 worker_thread+0x518/0xea0 kthread+0x359/0x690 ret_from_fork+0xf3/0x1b0 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 </TASK>

That can be reproduced by:

veritysetup format --data-block-size=4096 --hash-block-size=4096 /dev/vda /dev/vdb SIZE=$(blockdev --getsz /dev/vda) dmsetup create myverity -r --table "0 $SIZE verity 1 /dev/vda /dev/vdb 4096 4096 <data_blocks> 1 sha256 <root_hash> <salt> 1 try_verify_in_tasklet" mount /dev/dm-0 /mnt -o ro echo 102400 > /sys/module/dm_bufio/parameters/max_cache_size_bytes [read files in /mnt]

  • Published: Jul 28, 2025
  • Updated: Nov 20, 2025
  • CVE: CVE-2025-38496
  • Severity: Medium
  • Exploit:
  • CISA KEV:

CVSS v3:

  • Severity: Medium
  • Score: 5.5
  • AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

No CWE or OWASP classifications available.

Frequently Asked Questions

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

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Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.

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