CVE-2021-47594
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedIn the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mptcp: never allow the PM to close a listener subflow Currently, when deleting an endpoint the netlink PM treverses all the local MPTCP sockets, regardless of their status. If an MPTCP listener socket is bound to the IP matching the delete endpoint, the listener TCP socket will be closed. That is unexpected, the PM should only affect data subflows. Additionally, syzbot was able to trigger a NULL ptr dereference due to the above: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000003: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000018-0x000000000000001f] CPU: 1 PID: 6550 Comm: syz-executor122 Not tainted 5.16.0-rc4-syzkaller #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 01/01/2011 RIP: 0010:__lock_acquire+0xd7d/0x54a0 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:4897 Code: 0f 0e 41 be 01 00 00 00 0f 86 c8 00 00 00 89 05 69 cc 0f 0e e9 bd 00 00 00 48 b8 00 00 00 00 00 fc ff df 48 89 da 48 c1 ea 03 <80> 3c 02 00 0f 85 f3 2f 00 00 48 81 3b 20 75 17 8f 0f 84 52 f3 ff RSP: 0018:ffffc90001f2f818 EFLAGS: 00010016 RAX: dffffc0000000000 RBX: 0000000000000018 RCX: 0000000000000000 RDX: 0000000000000003 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: 0000000000000001 RBP: 0000000000000000 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: 0000000000000001 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 000000000000000a R12: 0000000000000000 R13: ffff88801b98d700 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: 0000000000000001 FS: 00007f177cd3d700(0000) GS:ffff8880b9d00000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00007f177cd1b268 CR3: 000000001dd55000 CR4: 0000000000350ee0 Call Trace: <TASK> lock_acquire kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5637 [inline] lock_acquire+0x1ab/0x510 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5602 __raw_spin_lock_irqsave include/linux/spinlock_api_smp.h:110 [inline] _raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0x39/0x50 kernel/locking/spinlock.c:162 finish_wait+0xc0/0x270 kernel/sched/wait.c:400 inet_csk_wait_for_connect net/ipv4/inet_connection_sock.c:464 [inline] inet_csk_accept+0x7de/0x9d0 net/ipv4/inet_connection_sock.c:497 mptcp_accept+0xe5/0x500 net/mptcp/protocol.c:2865 inet_accept+0xe4/0x7b0 net/ipv4/af_inet.c:739 mptcp_stream_accept+0x2e7/0x10e0 net/mptcp/protocol.c:3345 do_accept+0x382/0x510 net/socket.c:1773 __sys_accept4_file+0x7e/0xe0 net/socket.c:1816 __sys_accept4+0xb0/0x100 net/socket.c:1846 __do_sys_accept net/socket.c:1864 [inline] __se_sys_accept net/socket.c:1861 [inline] __x64_sys_accept+0x71/0xb0 net/socket.c:1861 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x35/0xb0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae RIP: 0033:0x7f177cd8b8e9 Code: 28 00 00 00 75 05 48 83 c4 28 c3 e8 b1 14 00 00 90 48 89 f8 48 89 f7 48 89 d6 48 89 ca 4d 89 c2 4d 89 c8 4c 8b 4c 24 08 0f 05 <48> 3d 01 f0 ff ff 73 01 c3 48 c7 c1 b8 ff ff ff f7 d8 64 89 01 48 RSP: 002b:00007f177cd3d308 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 000000000000002b RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00007f177ce13408 RCX: 00007f177cd8b8e9 RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: 0000000000000003 RBP: 00007f177ce13400 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 00007f177ce1340c R13: 00007f177cde1004 R14: 6d705f706374706d R15: 0000000000022000 </TASK> Fix the issue explicitly skipping MPTCP socket in TCP_LISTEN status.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysisThe code follows a pointer that is null, crashing the process. An attacker who can reliably trigger it turns the crash into a denial of service. The fix is checking for null before use and handling the failure path gracefully.
General guidance for the null pointer dereference class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data>= 5.13, < 5.15.11= 5.16CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
dbcve · scoped5.15.11
5.15.11 (or later 5.15.y/5.16.y stable release)
- Upgrade the Linux kernel to version 5.15.11 or later for the 5.15.y stable branch
- Alternatively, upgrade to a later version in the 5.16.y stable branch that includes the fix (such as 5.16.5 or later)
- After upgrading, verify the kernel version with: uname -r
- Ensure MPTCP is properly functional after reboot by checking /proc/net/mptcp or testing MPTCP connections
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-47594 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-47594 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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