CVE-2025-71132: smc91x: fix broken irq-context in PREEMPT_RT

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-01-14 · updated 2026-10-19
Weakness: CWE-667

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: smc91x: fix broken irq-context in PREEMPT_RT When smc91x.c is built with PREEMPT_RT, the following splat occurs in FVP_RevC: [ 13.055000] smc91x LNRO0003:00 eth0: link up, 10Mbps, half-duplex, lpa 0x0000 [ 13.062137] BUG: workqueue leaked atomic, lock or RCU: kworker/2:1[106] [ 13.062137] preempt=0x00000000 lock=0->0 RCU=0->1 workfn=mld_ifc_work [ 13.062266] C ** replaying previous printk message ** [ 13.062266] CPU: 2 UID: 0 PID: 106 Comm: kworker/2:1 Not tainted 6.18.0-dirty #179 PREEMPT_{RT,(full)} [ 13.062353] Hardware name: , BIOS [ 13.062382] Workqueue: mld mld_ifc_work [ 13.062469] Call trace: [ 13.062494] show_stack+0x24/0x40 (C) [ 13.062602] __dump_stack+0x28/0x48 [ 13.062710] dump_stack_lvl+0x7c/0xb0 [ 13.062818] dump_stack+0x18/0x34 [ 13.062926] process_scheduled_works+0x294/0x450 [ 13.063043] worker_thread+0x260/0x3d8 [ 13.063124] kthread+0x1c4/0x228 [ 13.063235] ret_from_fork+0x10/0x20 This happens because smc_special_trylock() disables IRQs even on PREEMPT_RT, but smc_special_unlock() does not restore IRQs on PREEMPT_RT. The reason is that smc_special_unlock() calls spin_unlock_irqrestore(), and rcu_read_unlock_bh() in __dev_queue_xmit() cannot invoke rcu_read_unlock() through __local_bh_enable_ip() when current->softirq_disable_cnt becomes zero. To address this issue, replace smc_special_trylock() with spin_trylock_irqsave().

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 5.15.1 before 5.15.198; from 5.16 before 6.1.160; from 6.2 before 6.6.120; from 6.7 before 6.12.64; from 6.13 before 6.18.4; 5.15, 6.19-rc1, 6.19-rc2, 6.19-rc3, 6.19-rc4, 6.19-rc5 (+3) — fixed in 5.15.198, 6.1.160, 6.12.64, 6.18.4, 6.6.120

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.15.198, 6.1.160, 6.12.64, 6.18.4. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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