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CVE-2026-23472

serial: core: fix infinite loop in handle_tx() for PORT_UNKNOWN

Published: 4/3/2026 Last updated: 5/11/2026 Reserved: 1/13/2026

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: serial: core: fix infinite loop in handle_tx() for PORT_UNKNOWN uart_write_room() and uart_write() behave inconsistently when xmit_buf is NULL (which happens for PORT_UNKNOWN ports that were never properly initialized): - uart_write_room() returns kfifo_avail() which can be > 0 - uart_write() checks xmit_buf and returns 0 if NULL This inconsistency causes an infinite loop in drivers that rely on tty_write_room() to determine if they can write: while (tty_write_room(tty) > 0) { written = tty->ops->write(...); // written is always 0, loop never exits } For example, caif_serial's handle_tx() enters an infinite loop when used with PORT_UNKNOWN serial ports, causing system hangs. Fix by making uart_write_room() also check xmit_buf and return 0 if it's NULL, consistent with uart_write(). Reproducer: https://gist.github.com/mrpre/d9a694cc0e19828ee3bc3b37983fde13

CNA assigner: Linux (416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67) Requested by: n/a

Opam packages affected (29)

albatross cdrom conf-bpftool conf-libbpf conf-linux-libc-dev core core_unix hvsock mirage-block-unix mm ocaml-probes ortools_solvers orun rawlink rawlink-eio rawlink-lwt restricted shell solo5 solo5-bindings-hvt solo5-bindings-spt solo5-cross-aarch64 solo5-kernel-ukvm tracy-client tuntap uring vhd-format vhd-format-lwt xapi-stdext-unix

Products affected (4)

Product Vendor Version
Linux Linux Cisco IOS and IOS XE
Linux Linux 16.0
Linux Linux < 10.0.10240.21034
Linux Linux < 10.0.22631.5472

References (6)