CVE-2024-55642 | block: Prevent potential deadlocks in zone write plug error recovery

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: block: Prevent potential deadlocks in zone write plug error recovery Zone write plugging for handling writes to zones of a zoned block device always execute a zone report whenever a write BIO to a zone fails. The intent of this is to ensure that the tracking of a zone write pointer is always correct to ensure that the alignment to a zone write pointer of write BIOs can be checked on submission and that we can always correctly emulate zone append operations using regular write BIOs. However, this error recovery scheme introduces a potential deadlock if a device queue freeze is initiated while BIOs are still plugged in a zone write plug and one of these write operation fails. In such case, the disk zone write plug error recovery work is scheduled and executes a report zone. This in turn can result in a request allocation in the underlying driver to issue the report zones command to the device. But with the device queue freeze already started, this allocation will block, preventing the report zone execution and the continuation of the processing of the plugged BIOs. As plugged BIOs hold a queue usage reference, the queue freeze itself will never complete, resulting in a deadlock. Avoid this problem by completely removing from the zone write plugging code the use of report zones operations after a failed write operation, instead relying on the device user to either execute a report zones, reset the zone, finish the zone, or give up writing to the device (which is a fairly common pattern for file systems which degrade to read-only after write failures). This is not an unreasonnable requirement as all well-behaved applications, FSes and device mapper already use report zones to recover from write errors whenever possible by comparing the current position of a zone write pointer with what their assumption about the position is. The changes to remove the automatic error recovery are as follows: - Completely remove the error recovery work and its associated resources (zone write plug list head, disk error list, and disk zone_wplugs_work work struct). This also removes the functions disk_zone_wplug_set_error() and disk_zone_wplug_clear_error(). - Change the BLK_ZONE_WPLUG_ERROR zone write plug flag into BLK_ZONE_WPLUG_NEED_WP_UPDATE. This new flag is set for a zone write plug whenever a write opration targetting the zone of the zone write plug fails. This flag indicates that the zone write pointer offset is not reliable and that it must be updated when the next report zone, reset zone, finish zone or disk revalidation is executed. - Modify blk_zone_write_plug_bio_endio() to set the BLK_ZONE_WPLUG_NEED_WP_UPDATE flag for the target zone of a failed write BIO. - Modify the function disk_zone_wplug_set_wp_offset() to clear this new flag, thus implementing recovery of a correct write pointer offset with the reset (all) zone and finish zone operations. - Modify blkdev_report_zones() to always use the disk_report_zones_cb() callback so that disk_zone_wplug_sync_wp_offset() can be called for any zone marked with the BLK_ZONE_WPLUG_NEED_WP_UPDATE flag. This implements recovery of a correct write pointer offset for zone write plugs marked with BLK_ZONE_WPLUG_NEED_WP_UPDATE and within the range of the report zones operation executed by the user. - Modify blk_revalidate_seq_zone() to call disk_zone_wplug_sync_wp_offset() for all sequential write required zones when a zoned block device is revalidated, thus always resolving any inconsistency between the write pointer offset of zone write plugs and the actual write pointer position of sequential zones.

Published: 2025-01-11 Last update: 2025-10-01 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2024-55642 is rated Low Risk (28.2/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.06%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2024-55642

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-05-06 0.04% 0.06% +0.02%
2 2025-01-12 0.04%

Full EPSS history (2 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2024-55642

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
1.8 3.6 [email protected]
5.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
1.8 3.6 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2024-55642

OS Trackers for CVE-2024-55642

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2024-55642 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (linux), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2024-55642
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-55642
suse medium CVE-2024-55642 severity moderate: SUSE including 52 source package names (cluster-md-kmp-default, dlm-kmp-default, …), 268 product×package rows across 46 product lines (SLES-LTSS-TERADATA 15 SP2, SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 12 SP5, … (46 product lines)): Known Not Affected 242, Fixed 26. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-55642/
ubuntu medium CVE-2024-55642 medium priority: Ubuntu including 130 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1040 status rows across 8 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 713, ignored 146, not-affected 106, released 75. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2024-55642

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2024-55642

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel >= 6.10, < 6.12.6 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.13 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.13:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.13 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.13:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2024-55642

cvelogic Threat Intelligence