CVE-2022-49889
kernel: ring-buffer: Check for NULL cpu_buffer in ring_buffer_wake_waiters()
Severity
LowRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 3.1
Review impact separately from score.
Published · May 1, 2025
Updated · June 30, 2026
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ring-buffer: Check for NULL cpu_buffer in ring_buffer_wake_waiters()
On some machines the number of listed CPUs may be bigger than the actual CPUs that exist. The tracing subsystem allocates a per_cpu directory with access to the per CPU ring buffer via a cpuX file. But to save space, the ring buffer will only allocate buffers for online CPUs, even though the CPU array will be as big as the nr_cpu_ids.
With the addition of waking waiters on the ring buffer when closing the file, the ring_buffer_wake_waiters() now needs to make sure that the buffer is allocated (with the irq_work allocated with it) before trying to wake waiters, as it will cause a NULL pointer dereference.
While debugging this, I added a NULL check for the buffer itself (which is OK to do), and also NULL pointer checks against buffer->buffers (which is not fine, and will WARN) as well as making sure the CPU number passed in is within the nr_cpu_ids (which is also not fine if it isn't).
Bugzilla: https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1204705
CVSS score applicability
The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.
Mitigation
No mitigation is specified in collected source.
CVSS / CWE
CVSS 3.1 · 4.4CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE-476 · NULL Pointer Dereference