Linux KernelOperating system · Linux

CVE-2024-55642

MEDIUM · 5.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-01-11
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 6.12.6 or later.
See remediation →
57/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Zero-click Patch available

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 · unedited
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: block: Prevent potential deadlocks in zone write plug error recovery Zone write plugging for handling writes to zones of a zoned block device always execute a zone report whenever a write BIO to a zone fails. The intent of this is to ensure that the tracking of a zone write pointer is always correct to ensure that the alignment to a zone write pointer of write BIOs can be checked on submission and that we can always correctly emulate zone append operations using regular write BIOs. However, this error recovery scheme introduces a potential deadlock if a device queue freeze is initiated while BIOs are still plugged in a zone write plug and one of these write operation fails. In such case, the disk zone write plug error recovery work is scheduled and executes a report zone. This in turn can result in a request allocation in the underlying driver to issue the report zones command to the device. But with the device queue freeze already started, this allocation will block, preventing the report zone execution and the continuation of the processing of the plugged BIOs. As plugged BIOs hold a queue usage reference, the queue freeze itself will never complete, resulting in a deadlock. Avoid this problem by completely removing from the zone write plugging code the use of report zones operations after a failed write operation, instead relying on the device user to either execute a report zones, reset the zone, finish the zone, or give up writing to the device (which is a fairly common pattern for file systems which degrade to read-only after write failures). This is not an unreasonnable requirement as all well-behaved applications, FSes and device mapper already use report zones to recover from write errors whenever possible by comparing the current position of a zone write pointer with what their assumption about the position is. The changes to remove the automatic error recovery are as follows: - Completely remove the error recovery work and its associated resources (zone write plug list head, disk error list, and disk zone_wplugs_work work struct). This also removes the functions disk_zone_wplug_set_error() and disk_zone_wplug_clear_error(). - Change the BLK_ZONE_WPLUG_ERROR zone write plug flag into BLK_ZONE_WPLUG_NEED_WP_UPDATE. This new flag is set for a zone write plug whenever a write opration targetting the zone of the zone write plug fails. This flag indicates that the zone write pointer offset is not reliable and that it must be updated when the next report zone, reset zone, finish zone or disk revalidation is executed. - Modify blk_zone_write_plug_bio_endio() to set the BLK_ZONE_WPLUG_NEED_WP_UPDATE flag for the target zone of a failed write BIO. - Modify the function disk_zone_wplug_set_wp_offset() to clear this new flag, thus implementing recovery of a correct write pointer offset with the reset (all) zone and finish zone operations. - Modify blkdev_report_zones() to always use the disk_report_zones_cb() callback so that disk_zone_wplug_sync_wp_offset() can be called for any zone marked with the BLK_ZONE_WPLUG_NEED_WP_UPDATE flag. This implements recovery of a correct write pointer offset for zone write plugs marked with BLK_ZONE_WPLUG_NEED_WP_UPDATE and within the range of the report zones operation executed by the user. - Modify blk_revalidate_seq_zone() to call disk_zone_wplug_sync_wp_offset() for all sequential write required zones when a zoned block device is revalidated, thus always resolving any inconsistency between the write pointer offset of zone write plugs and the actual write pointer position of sequential zones.

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 analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-667

Shared resources are accessed without correct locking, so concurrent operations interleave into inconsistent — and sometimes exploitable — states, or deadlock the service outright. These bugs are subtle and timing-dependent. The fix is correct, consistent locking or atomic operations around every shared resource.

General guidance for the improper locking 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
Linux KernelOperating system
Affected:>= 6.10, < 6.12.6= 6.13

CVSS 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 · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 6.12.6 or later
Fixed in 6.12.6
Vendor patch git.kernel.org →
Recommended fix High confidence

Linux Kernel 6.12.6 or later (or latest stable 6.13.x that includes the fix)

  1. Check current kernel version with: uname -r
  2. Identify the distribution and use its package manager to check for available kernel updates (e.g., apt update && apt-cache search linux-image for Debian/Ubuntu, yum check-update for RHEL/CentOS, dnf upgrade for Fedora)
  3. Upgrade to kernel version 6.12.6 or later, or the latest stable kernel that includes the fix for this vulnerability
  4. For Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt-get install linux-image-<version>
  5. For RHEL/CentOS/Fedora: sudo dnf upgrade kernel-<version>
  6. For SUSE: sudo zypper install kernel-default-<version>
  7. After installation, reboot the system to load the new kernel: sudo reboot
  8. Verify the new kernel is running with: uname -r
Caveat Kernel upgrades may require system reboot and could have compatibility impacts with custom drivers or modules; test in staging environment first

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $1,600. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2024-55642 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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