CVE-2025-40220 | fuse: fix livelock in synchronous file put from fuseblk workers

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: fuse: fix livelock in synchronous file put from fuseblk workers I observed a hang when running generic/323 against a fuseblk server. This test opens a file, initiates a lot of AIO writes to that file descriptor, and closes the file descriptor before the writes complete. Unsurprisingly, the AIO exerciser threads are mostly stuck waiting for responses from the fuseblk server: # cat /proc/372265/task/372313/stack [<0>] request_wait_answer+0x1fe/0x2a0 [fuse] [<0>] __fuse_simple_request+0xd3/0x2b0 [fuse] [<0>] fuse_do_getattr+0xfc/0x1f0 [fuse] [<0>] fuse_file_read_iter+0xbe/0x1c0 [fuse] [<0>] aio_read+0x130/0x1e0 [<0>] io_submit_one+0x542/0x860 [<0>] __x64_sys_io_submit+0x98/0x1a0 [<0>] do_syscall_64+0x37/0xf0 [<0>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53 But the /weird/ part is that the fuseblk server threads are waiting for responses from itself: # cat /proc/372210/task/372232/stack [<0>] request_wait_answer+0x1fe/0x2a0 [fuse] [<0>] __fuse_simple_request+0xd3/0x2b0 [fuse] [<0>] fuse_file_put+0x9a/0xd0 [fuse] [<0>] fuse_release+0x36/0x50 [fuse] [<0>] __fput+0xec/0x2b0 [<0>] task_work_run+0x55/0x90 [<0>] syscall_exit_to_user_mode+0xe9/0x100 [<0>] do_syscall_64+0x43/0xf0 [<0>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53 The fuseblk server is fuse2fs so there's nothing all that exciting in the server itself. So why is the fuse server calling fuse_file_put? The commit message for the fstest sheds some light on that: "By closing the file descriptor before calling io_destroy, you pretty much guarantee that the last put on the ioctx will be done in interrupt context (during I/O completion). Aha. AIO fgets a new struct file from the fd when it queues the ioctx. The completion of the FUSE_WRITE command from userspace causes the fuse server to call the AIO completion function. The completion puts the struct file, queuing a delayed fput to the fuse server task. When the fuse server task returns to userspace, it has to run the delayed fput, which in the case of a fuseblk server, it does synchronously. Sending the FUSE_RELEASE command sychronously from fuse server threads is a bad idea because a client program can initiate enough simultaneous AIOs such that all the fuse server threads end up in delayed_fput, and now there aren't any threads left to handle the queued fuse commands. Fix this by only using asynchronous fputs when closing files, and leave a comment explaining why.

Published: 2025-12-04 Last update: 2026-04-15 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2025-40220 is rated Low Risk (17.7/100): low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.06%). Mandatory action: Low composite risk—no urgent action required; patch on your normal maintenance cycle and revisit priority if CVSS or EPSS increases.

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-2025-40220

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 2025-12-18 0.02% 0.06% +0.03%
2 2025-12-05 0.02%

Full EPSS history (2 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2025-40220

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

No CVSS data in dataset for this CVE.

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2025-40220

OS Trackers for CVE-2025-40220

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2025-40220 not yet assigned 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-2025-40220
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-40220
suse medium CVE-2025-40220 severity moderate: SUSE including 515 source package names (13.2-9.1:libsystemd0-254.23-1.1, 13.2-9.1:libudev1-254.23-1.1, …), 1165 product×package rows across 206 product lines (Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/baremetal-os-container, Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/base-os-container, … (206 product lines)): Fixed 902, Known Affected 231, First Fixed 32. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-40220/
ubuntu medium CVE-2025-40220 medium priority: Ubuntu including 157 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1405 status rows across 9 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1010, ignored 182, released 157, needed 49, not-affected 4, pending 3. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-40220

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2025-40220

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
No affected products in dataset.

References for CVE-2025-40220

cvelogic Threat Intelligence