CVE-2025-21646 | afs: Fix the maximum cell name length

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: afs: Fix the maximum cell name length The kafs filesystem limits the maximum length of a cell to 256 bytes, but a problem occurs if someone actually does that: kafs tries to create a directory under /proc/net/afs/ with the name of the cell, but that fails with a warning: WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 9 at fs/proc/generic.c:405 because procfs limits the maximum filename length to 255. However, the DNS limits the maximum lookup length and, by extension, the maximum cell name, to 255 less two (length count and trailing NUL). Fix this by limiting the maximum acceptable cellname length to 253. This also allows us to be sure we can create the "/afs/.<cell>/" mountpoint too. Further, split the YFS VL record cell name maximum to be the 256 allowed by the protocol and ignore the record retrieved by YFSVL.GetCellName if it exceeds 253.

Published: 2025-01-19 Last update: 2025-11-03 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2025-21646 is rated Low Risk (24.5/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.03%). 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-2025-21646

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 2026-02-27 0.06% 0.03% -0.03%
2 2025-11-04 0.05% 0.06% +0.01%
3 2025-10-17 0.05%

Full EPSS history (6 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2025-21646

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]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2025-21646

OS Trackers for CVE-2025-21646

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2025-21646 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 2 source packages (linux, linux-6.1), 6 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 6. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2025-21646
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-21646
suse medium CVE-2025-21646 severity moderate: SUSE including 434 source package names (2.1.3-4.43:kernel-default-base-6.4.0-24.1.21.4, 2.1.3-6.5:kernel-default-6.4.0-25.1, …), 718 product×package rows across 124 product lines (Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/base-os-container, Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/kvm-os-container, … (124 product lines)): Fixed 379, Known Affected 231, Known Not Affected 108. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-21646/
ubuntu medium CVE-2025-21646 medium priority: Ubuntu including 158 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1551 status rows across 10 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1145, released 168, ignored 147, not-affected 90, needed 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-21646

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2025-21646

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel >= 5.8, < 5.10.234 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.11, < 5.15.177 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.16, < 6.1.125 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.2, < 6.6.72 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.7, < 6.12.10 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:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.13 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.13:rc3:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.13 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.13:rc4:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.13 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.13:rc5:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.13 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.13:rc6:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2025-21646

cvelogic Threat Intelligence