CVE-2025-38241 | mm/shmem, swap: fix softlockup with mTHP swapin

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/shmem, swap: fix softlockup with mTHP swapin Following softlockup can be easily reproduced on my test machine with: echo always > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/hugepages-64kB/enabled swapon /dev/zram0 # zram0 is a 48G swap device mkdir -p /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/test echo 1G > /sys/fs/cgroup/test/memory.max echo $BASHPID > /sys/fs/cgroup/test/cgroup.procs while true; do dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/test.img bs=1M count=5120 cat /tmp/test.img > /dev/null rm /tmp/test.img done Then after a while: watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 763s! [cat:5787] Modules linked in: zram virtiofs CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 5787 Comm: cat Kdump: loaded Tainted: G L 6.15.0.orig-gf3021d9246bc-dirty #118 PREEMPT(voluntary)· Tainted: [L]=SOFTLOCKUP Hardware name: Red Hat KVM/RHEL-AV, BIOS 0.0.0 02/06/2015 RIP: 0010:mpol_shared_policy_lookup+0xd/0x70 Code: e9 b8 b4 ff ff 31 c0 c3 cc cc cc cc 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 66 0f 1f 00 0f 1f 44 00 00 41 54 55 53 <48> 8b 1f 48 85 db 74 41 4c 8d 67 08 48 89 fb 48 89 f5 4c 89 e7 e8 RSP: 0018:ffffc90002b1fc28 EFLAGS: 00000202 RAX: 00000000001c20ca RBX: 0000000000724e1e RCX: 0000000000000001 RDX: ffff888118e214c8 RSI: 0000000000057d42 RDI: ffff888118e21518 RBP: 000000000002bec8 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: 0000000000000bf4 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: 0000000000000001 R13: 00000000001c20ca R14: 00000000001c20ca R15: 0000000000000000 FS: 00007f03f995c740(0000) GS:ffff88a07ad9a000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00007f03f98f1000 CR3: 0000000144626004 CR4: 0000000000770eb0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 PKRU: 55555554 Call Trace: <TASK> shmem_alloc_folio+0x31/0xc0 shmem_swapin_folio+0x309/0xcf0 ? filemap_get_entry+0x117/0x1e0 ? xas_load+0xd/0xb0 ? filemap_get_entry+0x101/0x1e0 shmem_get_folio_gfp+0x2ed/0x5b0 shmem_file_read_iter+0x7f/0x2e0 vfs_read+0x252/0x330 ksys_read+0x68/0xf0 do_syscall_64+0x4c/0x1c0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e RIP: 0033:0x7f03f9a46991 Code: 00 48 8b 15 81 14 10 00 f7 d8 64 89 02 b8 ff ff ff ff eb bd e8 20 ad 01 00 f3 0f 1e fa 80 3d 35 97 10 00 00 74 13 31 c0 0f 05 <48> 3d 00 f0 ff ff 77 4f c3 66 0f 1f 44 00 00 55 48 89 e5 48 83 ec RSP: 002b:00007fff3c52bd28 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000000 RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000000000040000 RCX: 00007f03f9a46991 RDX: 0000000000040000 RSI: 00007f03f98ba000 RDI: 0000000000000003 RBP: 00007fff3c52bd50 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 00007f03f9b9a380 R10: 0000000000000022 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 0000000000040000 R13: 00007f03f98ba000 R14: 0000000000000003 R15: 0000000000000000 </TASK> The reason is simple, readahead brought some order 0 folio in swap cache, and the swapin mTHP folio being allocated is in conflict with it, so swapcache_prepare fails and causes shmem_swap_alloc_folio to return -EEXIST, and shmem simply retries again and again causing this loop. Fix it by applying a similar fix for anon mTHP swapin. The performance change is very slight, time of swapin 10g zero folios with shmem (test for 12 times): Before: 2.47s After: 2.48s [[email protected]: add comment]

Published: 2025-07-09 Last update: 2025-11-19 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2025-38241 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-2025-38241

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 2026-05-05 0.02% 0.06% +0.04%
2 2025-07-09 0.02%

Full EPSS history (2 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2025-38241

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-2025-38241

OS Trackers for CVE-2025-38241

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2025-38241 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-2025-38241
redhat https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-38241
suse medium CVE-2025-38241 severity moderate: SUSE including 26 source package names (cluster-md-kmp-default, dlm-kmp-default, …), 281 product×package rows across 55 product lines (SLES-LTSS-TERADATA 15 SP2, SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP7, … (55 product lines)): Known Not Affected 281. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-38241/
ubuntu medium CVE-2025-38241 medium priority: Ubuntu including 158 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1548 status rows across 10 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1142, ignored 151, not-affected 146, released 107, needs-triage 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-38241

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2025-38241

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel >= 6.14, < 6.15.5 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.16 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.16:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.16 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.16:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.16 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.16:rc3:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2025-38241

cvelogic Threat Intelligence