CVE-2025-21816
MediumIn the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: hrtimers: Force migrate away hrtimers queued after CPUHP_AP_HRTIMERS_DYING hrtimers are migrated away from the dying CPU to any online target at the CPUHP_AP_HRTIMERS_DYING stage in order not to delay bandwidth timers handling tasks involved in the CPU hotplug forward progress. However wakeups can still be performed by the outgoing CPU after CPUHP_AP_HRTIMERS_DYING. Those can result again in bandwidth timers being armed. Depending on several considerations (crystal ball power management based election, earliest timer already enqueued, timer migration enabled or not), the target may eventually be the current CPU even if offline. If that happens, the timer is eventually ignored. The most notable example is RCU which had to deal with each and every of those wake-ups by deferring them to an online CPU, along with related workarounds: _ e787644caf76 (rcu: Defer RCU kthreads wakeup when CPU is dying) _ 9139f93209d1 (rcu/nocb: Fix RT throttling hrtimer armed from offline CPU) _ f7345ccc62a4 (rcu/nocb: Fix rcuog wake-up from offline softirq) The problem isn't confined to RCU though as the stop machine kthread (which runs CPUHP_AP_HRTIMERS_DYING) reports its completion at the end of its work through cpu_stop_signal_done() and performs a wake up that eventually arms the deadline server timer: WARNING: CPU: 94 PID: 588 at kernel/time/hrtimer.c:1086 hrtimer_start_range_ns+0x289/0x2d0 CPU: 94 UID: 0 PID: 588 Comm: migration/94 Not tainted Stopper: multi_cpu_stop+0x0/0x120 <- stop_machine_cpuslocked+0x66/0xc0 RIP: 0010:hrtimer_start_range_ns+0x289/0x2d0 Call Trace: <TASK> start_dl_timer enqueue_dl_entity dl_server_start enqueue_task_fair enqueue_task ttwu_do_activate try_to_wake_up complete cpu_stopper_thread Instead of providing yet another bandaid to work around the situation, fix it in the hrtimers infrastructure instead: always migrate away a timer to an online target whenever it is enqueued from an offline CPU. This will also allow to revert all the above RCU disgraceful hacks.
CVSS 3.1 score
5.5
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Affected versions
Linux kernel versions
6.1.68,
6.6.7,
4.19.302,
5.4.264,
5.10.204,
5.15.143,
6.7
and later are affected. Fixed in
6.1.141,
6.6.93,
6.12.14,
6.13.3,
6.14
and their respective stable series.
References
The following references provide additional information about CVE-2025-21816 including vendor advisories, patch commits, exploit details, and third-party analysis. Links are sourced from the NIST NVD database.
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PatchKernel patch commithttps://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2aecec58e9040ce3d2694707889f9914a2374955
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PatchKernel patch commithttps://git.kernel.org/stable/c/53dac345395c0d2493cbc2f4c85fe38aef5b63f5
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PatchKernel patch commithttps://git.kernel.org/stable/c/63815bef47ec25f5a125019ca480882481ee1553
Frequently asked questions
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What is CVE-2025-21816?
CVE-2025-21816 is a Medium severity Linux kernel vulnerability with a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10 . It affects Linux kernel versions from 6.1.68 onward and has been patched in 6.1.141, 6.6.93, 6.12.14 and others. CVE-2025-21816 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
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What is the CVSS score for CVE-2025-21816?
CVE-2025-21816 has a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10, rated Medium severity (CVSS 3.1). The vector string is
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H. -
Is there a patch available for CVE-2025-21816?
Yes — CVE-2025-21816 has been patched. Fixed versions include 6.1.141, 6.6.93, 6.12.14 and others. If you are running Linux kernel 6.1.68 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.
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Is CVE-2025-21816 actively exploited?
No — CVE-2025-21816 has not been confirmed as actively exploited. It is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.