CVE-2025-37953

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

sch_htb: make htb_deactivate() idempotent

Alan reported a NULL pointer dereference in htb_next_rb_node() after we made htb_qlen_notify() idempotent.

It turns out in the following case it introduced some regression:

htb_dequeue_tree(): |-> fq_codel_dequeue() |-> qdisc_tree_reduce_backlog() |-> htb_qlen_notify() |-> htb_deactivate() |-> htb_next_rb_node() |-> htb_deactivate()

For htb_next_rb_node(), after calling the 1st htb_deactivate(), the clprio[prio]->ptr could be already set to NULL, which means htb_next_rb_node() is vulnerable here.

For htb_deactivate(), although we checked qlen before calling it, in case of qlen==0 after qdisc_tree_reduce_backlog(), we may call it again which triggers the warning inside.

To fix the issues here, we need to:

1. Make htb_deactivate() idempotent, that is, simply return if we already call it before.
2. Make htb_next_rb_node() safe against ptr==NULL.

Many thanks to Alan for testing and for the reproducer.

Affected Software

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/31ff70ad39485698cf779f2078132d80b57f6c07
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3769478610135e82b262640252d90f6efb05be71
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/98cd7ed92753090a714f0802d4434314526fe61d
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c4792b9e38d2f61b07eac72f10909fa76130314b
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c928dd4f6bf0c25c72b11824a1e9ac9bd37296a0