Skip to content
OpenAdvisories
Medium · 5.5 CVE-2021-47225 EUVD-2021-33873GHSA-mpm3-wjp6-8g7x

mac80211: fix deadlock in AP/VLAN handling

Published May 21, 2024 · Updated May 11, 2026 · Assigned by Linux

Vendor: Linux Product: Linux Package: linux-allwinner-5.19 Package: linux-aws-5.0 Package: linux-aws-5.11 Package: linux-aws-5.13 Package: linux-aws-5.19 Package: linux-aws-5.3 Package: linux-aws-5.8 Package: linux-aws-6.2 Package: linux-azure Package: linux-azure-5.11 Package: linux-azure-5.13 Package: linux-azure-5.19 Package: linux-azure-5.3 Package: linux-azure-5.8 Package: linux-azure-6.2 Package: linux-azure-edge Package: linux-azure-fde Package: linux-azure-fde-5.19 Package: linux-azure-fde-6.2 Package: linux-gcp Package: linux-gcp-5.11 Package: linux-gcp-5.13 Package: linux-gcp-5.19 Package: linux-gcp-5.3 Package: linux-gcp-5.8 Package: linux-gcp-6.2 Package: linux-gke Package: linux-gke-4.15 Package: linux-gke-5.15 Package: linux-gke-5.4 Package: linux-gkeop-5.4 Package: linux-hwe Package: linux-hwe-5.11 Package: linux-hwe-5.13 Package: linux-hwe-5.19 Package: linux-hwe-5.8 Package: linux-hwe-6.2 Package: linux-hwe-edge Package: linux-intel-5.13 Package: linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.19 Package: linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.2 Package: linux-nvidia-6.2 Package: linux-oem Package: linux-oem-5.10 Package: linux-oem-5.13 Package: linux-oem-5.14 Package: linux-oem-5.17 Package: linux-oem-5.6 Package: linux-oem-6.0 Package: linux-oem-6.1 Package: linux-oracle-5.0 Package: linux-oracle-5.11 Package: linux-oracle-5.13 Package: linux-oracle-5.3 Package: linux-oracle-5.8 Package: linux-raspi2 Package: linux-riscv Package: linux-riscv-5.11 Package: linux-riscv-5.19 Package: linux-riscv-5.8 Package: linux-starfive-5.19 Package: linux-starfive-6.2 Platform: Linux Ecosystem: Ubuntu

Description

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

mac80211: fix deadlock in AP/VLAN handling

Syzbot reports that when you have AP_VLAN interfaces that are up
and close the AP interface they belong to, we get a deadlock. No
surprise - since we dev_close() them with the wiphy mutex held,
which goes back into the netdev notifier in cfg80211 and tries to
acquire the wiphy mutex there.

To fix this, we need to do two things:
1) prevent changing iftype while AP_VLANs are up, we can't
easily fix this case since cfg80211 already calls us with
the wiphy mutex held, but change_interface() is relatively
rare in drivers anyway, so changing iftype isn't used much
(and userspace has to fall back to down/change/up anyway)
2) pull the dev_close() loop over VLANs out of the wiphy mutex
section in the normal stop case

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
Linux Linux 5.12 5.12.13

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS linux-riscv +20 No fix yet —
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS linux-gke +26 No fix yet —
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS linux-gcp +14 No fix yet —
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS linux-hwe-edge No fix yet —

References