CVE-2025-37878 Affecting kernel-rt-doc package, versions *


Severity

Recommended
medium

Based on CentOS security rating.

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-CENTOS7-KERNELRTDOC-10103574
  • published9 May 2025
  • disclosed9 May 2025

Introduced: 9 May 2025

NewCVE-2025-37878  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

There is no fixed version for Centos:7 kernel-rt-doc.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-rt-doc package and not the kernel-rt-doc package as distributed by Centos. See How to fix? for Centos:7 relevant fixed versions and status.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

perf/core: Fix WARN_ON(!ctx) in __free_event() for partial init

Move the get_ctx(child_ctx) call and the child_event->ctx assignment to occur immediately after the child event is allocated. Ensure that child_event->ctx is non-NULL before any subsequent error path within inherit_event calls free_event(), satisfying the assumptions of the cleanup code.

Details:

There's no clear Fixes tag, because this bug is a side-effect of multiple interacting commits over time (up to 15 years old), not a single regression.

The code initially incremented refcount then assigned context immediately after the child_event was created. Later, an early validity check for child_event was added before the refcount/assignment. Even later, a WARN_ON_ONCE() cleanup check was added, assuming event->ctx is valid if the pmu_ctx is valid. The problem is that the WARN_ON_ONCE() could trigger after the initial check passed but before child_event->ctx was assigned, violating its precondition. The solution is to assign child_event->ctx right after its initial validation. This ensures the context exists for any subsequent checks or cleanup routines, resolving the WARN_ON_ONCE().

To resolve it, defer the refcount update and child_event->ctx assignment directly after child_event->pmu_ctx is set but before checking if the parent event is orphaned. The cleanup routine depends on event->pmu_ctx being non-NULL before it verifies event->ctx is non-NULL. This also maintains the author's original intent of passing in child_ctx to find_get_pmu_context before its refcount/assignment.

[ mingo: Expanded the changelog from another email by Gabriel Shahrouzi. ]

CVSS Base Scores

version 3.1