CVE-2025-68169 — netpoll: Fix deadlock in memory allocation under spinlock

Affected: Linux

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

netpoll: Fix deadlock in memory allocation under spinlock

Fix a AA deadlock in refill_skbs() where memory allocation while holding skb_pool->lock can trigger a recursive lock acquisition attempt.

The deadlock scenario occurs when the system is under severe memory pressure:

1. refill_skbs() acquires skb_pool->lock (spinlock) 2. alloc_skb() is called while holding the lock 3. Memory allocator fails and calls slab_out_of_memory() 4. This triggers printk() for the OOM warning 5. The console output path calls netpoll_send_udp() 6. netpoll_send_udp() attempts to acquire the same skb_pool->lock 7. Deadlock: the lock is already held by the same CPU

Call stack: refill_skbs() spin_lock_irqsave(&skb_pool->lock) <- lock acquired __alloc_skb() kmem_cache_alloc_node_noprof() slab_out_of_memory() printk() console_flush_all() netpoll_send_udp() skb_dequeue() spin_lock_irqsave(&skb_pool->lock) <- deadlock attempt

This bug was exposed by commit 248f6571fd4c51 ("netpoll: Optimize skb refilling on critical path") which removed refill_skbs() from the critical path (where nested printk was being deferred), letting nested printk being called from inside refill_skbs()

Refactor refill_skbs() to never allocate memory while holding the spinlock.

Another possible solution to fix this problem is protecting the refill_skbs() from…

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CVE-2025-68169 — netpoll: Fix deadlock in memory allocation under spinlock