CVE-2025-68821 json
fuse: fix readahead reclaim deadlock
published 9mo ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2026-2272
- cvss
- —
- not scored
- cisa kev
- Not listed
- not in CISA's catalog
- epss
- 0.2%
- EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 10%
- public exploits
- 0
- none known
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
fuse: fix readahead reclaim deadlock
Commit e26ee4efbc79 ("fuse: allocate ff->release_args only if release is needed") skips allocating ff->release_args if the server does not implement open. However in doing so, fuse_prepare_release() now skips grabbing the reference on the inode, which makes it possible for an inode to be evicted from the dcache while there are inflight readahead requests. This causes a deadlock if the server triggers reclaim while servicing the readahead request and reclaim attempts to evict the inode of the file being read ahead. Since the folio is locked during readahead, when reclaim evicts the fuse inode and fuse_evict_inode() attempts to remove all folios associated with the inode from the page cache (truncate_inode_pages_range()), reclaim will block forever waiting for the lock since readahead cannot relinquish the lock because it is itself blocked in reclaim:
>>> stack_trace(1504735) folio_wait_bit_common (mm/filemap.c:1308:4) folio_lock (./include/linux/pagemap.h:1052:3) truncate_inode_pages_range (mm/truncate.c:336:10) fuse_evict_inode (fs/fuse/inode.c:161:2) evict (fs/inode.c:704:3) dentry_unlink_inode (fs/dcache.c:412:3) __dentry_kill (fs/dcache.c:615:3) shrink_kill (fs/dcache.c:1060:12) shrink_dentry_list (fs/dcache.c:1087:3) prune_dcache_sb (fs/dcache.c:1168:2) super_cache_scan (fs/super.c:221:10) do_shrink_slab (mm/shrinker.c:435:9) shrink_slab (mm/shrinker.c:626:10) shrink_node (mm/vmscan.c:5951:2) shrink_zones (mm/vmscan.c:6195:3) do_try_to_free_pages (mm/vmscan.c:6257:3) do_swap_page (mm/memory.c:4136:11) handle_pte_fault (mm/memory.c:5562:10) handle_mm_fault (mm/memory.c:5870:9) do_user_addr_fault (arch/x86/mm/fault.c:1338:10) handle_page_fault (arch/x86/mm/fault.c:1481:3) exc_page_fault (arch/x86/mm/fault.c:1539:2) asm_exc_page_fault+0x22/0x27
Fix this deadlock by allocating ff->release_args and grabbing the reference on the inode when preparing the file for release even if the server does not implement open. The inode reference will be dropped when the last reference on the fuse file is dropped (see fuse_file_put() -> fuse_release_end()).
Patch / fix
- Linux Linux 5.15.198, 6.1.160, 6.6.120, 6.12.64, 6.18.3, 6.19
- linux Debian 12 6.1.162-1
- linux Debian 13 6.12.69-1
- linux Debian 14 6.18.3-1
debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-68821
- linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-173.183
- linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-110.110
- linux Ubuntu 25.10 6.17.0-22.22
- linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1103.110
- linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1052.55
- linux-aws Ubuntu 25.10 6.17.0-1012.12
- linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1103.112
- linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1054.57
ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-68821
Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0
- kernel-rt Linux Micro 6.2 6.12.0-160000.26.1
- kernel-64kb SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
- kernel-source SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
- kernel-default SLES 16.0, SLE High Availability Extension 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2 +1 more 6.12.0-160000.26.1
- kernel-default-base SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1.160000.2.7
- kernel-syms SLES 16.0, Linux Micro Extras 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
- kernel-azure SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
- kernel-obs-qa SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:20555-1SUSE-SU-2026:20599-1SUSE-SU-2026:20615-1SUSE-SU-2026:20570-1
- kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
- dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
- kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
- kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
- kernel-azure openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
- kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
- kernel-source openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
- kernel-default openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.26.1
opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:20287-1
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/cbbf3f1bb9f834bb2acbb61ddca74363456e19cd commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/4703bc0e8cd3409acb1476a70cb5b7ff943cf39a commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/cf74785c00b8b1c0c4a9dd74bfa9c22d62e2d99f commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/fbba8b00bbe4e4f958a2b0654cc1219a7e6597f6 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/e0d6de83a4cc22bbac72713f3a58121af36cc411 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/bd5603eaae0aabf527bfb3ce1bb07e979ce5bd50 commit
Is CVE-2025-68821 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.
Check with FencerVendor advisories
What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.
red hat product security vex CVE-2025-68821 updated cvss 5.5
kernel: Linux kernel FUSE: Denial of Service via readahead reclaim deadlock
-
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 moreaffected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
-
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernelaffected: no fix available
-
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 morenot affected: vulnerable code not present
Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf
Exploit prediction
0.21% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 10% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).
Affected products
- Linux Linux
Classification
- Technology feeds
References
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/cbbf3f1bb9f834bb2acbb61ddca74363456e19cd
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/4703bc0e8cd3409acb1476a70cb5b7ff943cf39a
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/cf74785c00b8b1c0c4a9dd74bfa9c22d62e2d99f
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/fbba8b00bbe4e4f958a2b0654cc1219a7e6597f6
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/e0d6de83a4cc22bbac72713f3a58121af36cc411
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/bd5603eaae0aabf527bfb3ce1bb07e979ce5bd50
Sources
- CVE List CVE-2025-68821
- NVD CVE-2025-68821
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