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Improper Update of Reference Count The advisory has been revoked - it doesn't affect any version of package kernel-headers  (opens in a new tab)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-RHEL10-KERNELHEADERS-14450434
  • published17 Dec 2025
  • disclosed16 Dec 2025
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Introduced: 16 Dec 2025

CVE-2025-68245  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-911  (opens in a new tab)

Amendment

The Red Hat security team deemed this advisory irrelevant for RHEL:10.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-headers package and not the kernel-headers package as distributed by RHEL.

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

net: netpoll: fix incorrect refcount handling causing incorrect cleanup

commit efa95b01da18 ("netpoll: fix use after free") incorrectly ignored the refcount and prematurely set dev->npinfo to NULL during netpoll cleanup, leading to improper behavior and memory leaks.

Scenario causing lack of proper cleanup:

  1. A netpoll is associated with a NIC (e.g., eth0) and netdev->npinfo is allocated, and refcnt = 1

    • Keep in mind that npinfo is shared among all netpoll instances. In this case, there is just one.

  2. Another netpoll is also associated with the same NIC and npinfo->refcnt += 1.

    • Now dev->npinfo->refcnt = 2;
    • There is just one npinfo associated to the netdev.

  3. When the first netpolls goes to clean up:

    • The first cleanup succeeds and clears np->dev->npinfo, ignoring refcnt.
      • It basically calls RCU_INIT_POINTER(np->dev->npinfo, NULL);
    • Set dev->npinfo = NULL, without proper cleanup
    • No ->ndo_netpoll_cleanup() is either called

  4. Now the second target tries to clean up

    • The second cleanup fails because np->dev->npinfo is already NULL.
      • In this case, ops->ndo_netpoll_cleanup() was never called, and the skb pool is not cleaned as well (for the second netpoll instance)
  • This leaks npinfo and skbpool skbs, which is clearly reported by kmemleak.

Revert commit efa95b01da18 ("netpoll: fix use after free") and adds clarifying comments emphasizing that npinfo cleanup should only happen once the refcount reaches zero, ensuring stable and correct netpoll behavior.