CVE-2025-39768: net/mlx5: HWS, fix complex rules rehash error flow

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: 2025-09-11 · updated 2026-10-19
Weakness: CWE-617

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/mlx5: HWS, fix complex rules rehash error flow Moving rules from matcher to matcher should not fail. However, if it does fail due to various reasons, the error flow should allow the kernel to continue functioning (albeit with broken steering rules) instead of going into series of soft lock-ups or some other problematic behaviour. Similar to the simple rules, complex rules rehash logic suffers from the same problems. This patch fixes the error flow for moving complex rules: - If new rule creation fails before it was even enqeued, do not poll for completion - If TIMEOUT happened while moving the rule, no point trying to poll for completions for other rules. Something is broken, completion won't come, just abort the rehash sequence. - If some other completion with error received, don't give up. Continue handling rest of the rules to minimize the damage. - Make sure that the first error code that was received will be actually returned to the caller instead of replacing it with the generic error code. All the aforementioned issues stem from the same bad error flow, so no point fixing them one by one and leaving partially broken code - fixing them in one patch.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 6.16 before 6.16.4; 6.17-rc1, 6.17-rc2 — fixed in 6.16.4

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.16.4. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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