CVE-2025-40260

Name	CVE-2025-40260
Description	In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sched_ext: Fix scx_enable() crash on helper kthread creation failure A crash was observed when the sched_ext selftests runner was terminated with Ctrl+\ while test 15 was running: NIP [c00000000028fa58] scx_enable.constprop.0+0x358/0x12b0 LR [c00000000028fa2c] scx_enable.constprop.0+0x32c/0x12b0 Call Trace: scx_enable.constprop.0+0x32c/0x12b0 (unreliable) bpf_struct_ops_link_create+0x18c/0x22c __sys_bpf+0x23f8/0x3044 sys_bpf+0x2c/0x6c system_call_exception+0x124/0x320 system_call_vectored_common+0x15c/0x2ec kthread_run_worker() returns an ERR_PTR() on failure rather than NULL, but the current code in scx_alloc_and_add_sched() only checks for a NULL helper. Incase of failure on SIGQUIT, the error is not handled in scx_alloc_and_add_sched() and scx_enable() ends up dereferencing an error pointer. Error handling is fixed in scx_alloc_and_add_sched() to propagate PTR_ERR() into ret, so that scx_enable() jumps to the existing error path, avoiding random dereference on failure.
Source	CVE (at NVD; CERT, ENISA, LWN, oss-sec, fulldisc, Debian ELTS, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Gentoo, SUSE bugzilla/CVE, GitHub advisories/code/issues, web search, more)

Vulnerable and fixed packages

The table below lists information on source packages.

Source Package	Release	Version	Status
linux (PTS)	bullseye	5.10.223-1	fixed
	bullseye (security)	5.10.247-1	fixed
	bookworm	6.1.159-1	fixed
	bookworm (security)	6.1.158-1	fixed
	trixie	6.12.63-1	fixed
	trixie (security)	6.12.48-1	fixed
	forky	6.17.13-1	fixed
	sid	6.18.5-1	fixed

The information below is based on the following data on fixed versions.

Package	Type	Release	Fixed Version
linux	source	bullseye	(not affected)
linux	source	bookworm	(not affected)
linux	source	trixie	(not affected)
linux	source	(unstable)	6.17.10-1

Notes

[trixie] - linux <not-affected> (Vulnerable code not present)
[bookworm] - linux <not-affected> (Vulnerable code not present)
[bullseye] - linux <not-affected> (Vulnerable code not present)
https://git.kernel.org/linus/7b6216baae751369195fa3c83d434d23bcda406a (6.18-rc7)