Cloudanix VulnDB

CVE-2023-53668

High · 7.1

CVSS

7.1

EPSS

0.2%

Published

Oct 7, 2025

CISA due date

—

Cloudanix analysis

Schedule a fix SSVC: Track

A bug in the Linux kernel's tracing system can freeze a CPU when someone reads a special log file, potentially making the machine unresponsive until it is restarted.

Exploitation
Local Privilege
Attacker needs
Low Privilege
Complexity
Low
Impact
Denial Of Service
Component
OS kernel
Class
Memory Corruption
Remediation
Upgrade
Effort
Medium
Patch risk
Low

What it actually does

Ring buffer reset fails to clear dirty 'entries' metadata on all pages; subsequent resize operations add these stale values to cpu_buffer->overrun, causing ring_buffer_empty_cpu() and rb_num_of_entries() to disagree and produce an infinite loop inside tracing_read_pipe().

Why it matters to the business

Systems that expose or allow reads of trace_pipe can experience CPU soft lockups, halting tracing workflows and potentially requiring a reboot or live kernel patch to restore responsiveness.

How an attack unfolds

An attacker with local access opens /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace_pipe, triggers ring-buffer reset followed by a size reduction that leaves stale page metadata, then performs repeated reads; the kernel enters the waitagain loop and triggers the soft-lockup watchdog.

How to fix it

Upgrade the Linux kernel to a version containing commit 0a29dae5786d263016a9aceb1e56bf3fd4cc6fa0 or later; rebuild and reboot with the patched kernel. Until then, restrict unprivileged access to trace_pipe via file permissions or disable tracing when not required.

How to confirm the fix worked

Confirm the running kernel contains commit 0a29dae5786d263016a9aceb1e56bf3fd4cc6fa0, then attempt to reproduce the original read loop under controlled reset/resize conditions and verify the soft-lockup no longer occurs.

Typical attack path

  1. Obtain local shell or container access on a vulnerable kernel
  2. Open or read /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace_pipe
  3. Cause ring-buffer reset and subsequent resize (via tracing control interfaces or workload)
  4. Trigger repeated read operations that hit the inconsistent overrun count
  5. Induce kernel soft lockup and system degradation

How to detect it

Search kernel logs for soft-lockup watchdog entries citing ring_buffer_empty_cpu or tracing_read_pipe; inspect audit logs for repeated open/read activity on trace_pipe around the time of the lockup.

What your security team should do

  • Prioritize kernel upgrade on any host exposing trace_pipe or performing frequent tracing
  • Audit systems for unprivileged access to /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/
  • Monitor for soft-lockup watchdog messages referencing ring_buffer_empty_cpu or tracing_read_pipe
  • Apply the fix before enabling production tracing workloads

The record

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ring-buffer: Fix deadloop issue on reading trace_pipe Soft lockup occurs when reading file 'trace_pipe': watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#6 stuck for 22s! [cat:4488] [...] RIP: 0010:ring_buffer_empty_cpu+0xed/0x170 RSP: 0018:ffff88810dd6fc48 EFLAGS: 00000246 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 0000000000000246 RCX: ffffffff93d1aaeb RDX: ffff88810a280040 RSI: 0000000000000008 RDI: ffff88811164b218 RBP: ffff88811164b218 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: ffff88815156600f R10: ffffed102a2acc01 R11: 0000000000000001 R12: 0000000051651901 R13: 0000000000000000 R14: ffff888115e49500 R15: 0000000000000000 [...] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00007f8d853c2000 CR3: 000000010dcd8000 CR4: 00000000000006e0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 Call Trace: __find_next_entry+0x1a8/0x4b0 ? peek_next_entry+0x250/0x250 ? down_write+0xa5/0x120 ? down_write_killable+0x130/0x130 trace_find_next_entry_inc+0x3b/0x1d0 tracing_read_pipe+0x423/0xae0 ? tracing_splice_read_pipe+0xcb0/0xcb0 vfs_read+0x16b/0x490 ksys_read+0x105/0x210 ? __ia32_sys_pwrite64+0x200/0x200 ? switch_fpu_return+0x108/0x220 do_syscall_64+0x33/0x40 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x61/0xc6 Through the vmcore, I found it's because in tracing_read_pipe(), ring_buffer_empty_cpu() found some buffer is not empty but then it cannot read anything due to "rb_num_of_entries() == 0" always true, Then it infinitely loop the procedure due to user buffer not been filled, see following code path: tracing_read_pipe() { ... ... waitagain: tracing_wait_pipe() // 1. find non-empty buffer here trace_find_next_entry_inc() // 2. loop here try to find an entry __find_next_entry() ring_buffer_empty_cpu(); // 3. find non-empty buffer peek_next_entry() // 4. but peek always return NULL ring_buffer_peek() rb_buffer_peek() rb_get_reader_page() // 5. because rb_num_of_entries() == 0 always true here // then return NULL // 6. user buffer not been filled so goto 'waitgain' // and eventually leads to an deadloop in kernel!!! } By some analyzing, I found that when resetting ringbuffer, the 'entries' of its pages are not all cleared (see rb_reset_cpu()). Then when reducing the ringbuffer, and if some reduced pages exist dirty 'entries' data, they will be added into 'cpu_buffer->overrun' (see rb_remove_pages()), which cause wrong 'overrun' count and eventually cause the deadloop issue. To fix it, we need to clear every pages in rb_reset_cpu().

Affected packages

Ecosystem Package Introduced Fixed
Linux Kernel 3.6.0 4.14.322
SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP6 kernel-default 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP7 kernel-default 0 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS kernel-64kb 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS kernel-default 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS kernel-default-base 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1.150500.6.61.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS kernel-docs 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS kernel-obs-build 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS kernel-source 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS kernel-syms 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS kernel-64kb 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS kernel-default 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS kernel-default-base 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1.150500.6.61.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS kernel-docs 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS kernel-obs-build 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS kernel-source 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS kernel-syms 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP5 kernel-default 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP5 kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP5_Update_32 0 1-150500.11.3.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 kernel-default 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP6-RT_Update_17 0 1-150600.1.3.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP6_Update_17 0 1-150600.13.5.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP7 kernel-default 0 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP7 kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP7_Update_6 0 1-150700.15.3.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.5 kernel-default 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.5 kernel-default-base 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1.150500.6.61.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.5 kernel-source 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 kernel-64kb 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 kernel-default 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 kernel-default-base 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1.150600.12.34.2
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 kernel-source 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 kernel-zfcpdump 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 kernel-64kb 0 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 kernel-default 0 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 kernel-default-base 0 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1.150700.17.15.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 kernel-source 0 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 kernel-zfcpdump 0 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 kernel-docs 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 kernel-obs-build 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 kernel-source 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 kernel-syms 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 kernel-docs 0 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 kernel-obs-build 0 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 kernel-source 0 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 kernel-syms 0 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Legacy 15 SP6 kernel-default 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Legacy 15 SP7 kernel-default 0 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 kernel-azure 0 6.4.0-150600.8.55.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 kernel-source-azure 0 6.4.0-150600.8.55.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 kernel-syms-azure 0 6.4.0-150600.8.55.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 kernel-azure 0 6.4.0-150700.20.18.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 kernel-source-azure 0 6.4.0-150700.20.18.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 kernel-syms-azure 0 6.4.0-150700.20.18.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS kernel-64kb 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS kernel-default 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS kernel-default-base 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1.150500.6.61.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS kernel-docs 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS kernel-obs-build 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS kernel-source 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS kernel-syms 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS kernel-zfcpdump 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 kernel-default 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 kernel-default-base 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1.150500.6.61.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 kernel-docs 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 kernel-obs-build 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 kernel-source 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 kernel-syms 0 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension 15 SP6 kernel-default 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
SUSE:Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension 15 SP7 kernel-default 0 6.4.0-150700.53.22.1
SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 kernel-rt 0 6.4.0-150600.10.58.1
SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 kernel-rt_debug 0 6.4.0-150600.10.58.1
SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 kernel-source-rt 0 6.4.0-150600.10.58.1
SUSE:Real Time Module 15 SP6 kernel-syms-rt 0 6.4.0-150600.10.58.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 dtb-aarch64 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-64kb 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-azure 0 6.4.0-150600.8.55.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-debug 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-default 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-default-base 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1.150600.12.34.2
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-docs 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-kvmsmall 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-obs-build 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-obs-qa 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-rt 0 6.4.0-150600.10.58.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-rt_debug 0 6.4.0-150600.10.58.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-source 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-source-azure 0 6.4.0-150600.8.55.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-source-rt 0 6.4.0-150600.10.58.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-syms 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-syms-azure 0 6.4.0-150600.8.55.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-syms-rt 0 6.4.0-150600.10.58.1
openSUSE:Leap 15.6 kernel-zfcpdump 0 6.4.0-150600.23.78.1

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