CVE-2025-21807: block: fix queue freeze vs limits lock order in sysfs store methods

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2025-02-27 · updated 2026-07-18
Weakness: CWE-667

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: block: fix queue freeze vs limits lock order in sysfs store methods queue_attr_store() always freezes a device queue before calling the attribute store operation. For attributes that control queue limits, the store operation will also lock the queue limits with a call to queue_limits_start_update(). However, some drivers (e.g. SCSI sd) may need to issue commands to a device to obtain limit values from the hardware with the queue limits locked. This creates a potential ABBA deadlock situation if a user attempts to modify a limit (thus freezing the device queue) while the device driver starts a revalidation of the device queue limits. Avoid such deadlock by not freezing the queue before calling the ->store_limit() method in struct queue_sysfs_entry and instead use the queue_limits_commit_update_frozen helper to freeze the queue after taking the limits lock. This also removes taking the sysfs lock for the store_limit method as it doesn't protect anything here, but creates even more nesting. Hopefully it will go away from the actual sysfs methods entirely soon. (commit log adapted from a similar patch from Damien Le Moal)

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 6.9 before 6.13.2 — fixed in 6.13.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.13.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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