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

gve: prevent ethtool ops after shutdown

A crash can occur if an ethtool operation is invoked
after shutdown() is called.

shutdown() is invoked during system shutdown to stop DMA operations
without performing expensive deallocations. It is discouraged to
unregister the netdev in this path, so the device may still be visible
to userspace and kernel helpers.

In gve, shutdown() tears down most internal data structures. If an
ethtool operation is dispatched after shutdown(), it will dereference
freed or NULL pointers, leading to a kernel panic. While graceful
shutdown normally quiesces userspace before invoking the reboot
syscall, forced shutdowns (as observed on GCP VMs) can still trigger
this path.

Fix by calling netif_device_detach() in shutdown().
This marks the device as detached so the ethtool ioctl handler
will skip dispatching operations to the driver.
History

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 17:30:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: gve: prevent ethtool ops after shutdown A crash can occur if an ethtool operation is invoked after shutdown() is called. shutdown() is invoked during system shutdown to stop DMA operations without performing expensive deallocations. It is discouraged to unregister the netdev in this path, so the device may still be visible to userspace and kernel helpers. In gve, shutdown() tears down most internal data structures. If an ethtool operation is dispatched after shutdown(), it will dereference freed or NULL pointers, leading to a kernel panic. While graceful shutdown normally quiesces userspace before invoking the reboot syscall, forced shutdowns (as observed on GCP VMs) can still trigger this path. Fix by calling netif_device_detach() in shutdown(). This marks the device as detached so the ethtool ioctl handler will skip dispatching operations to the driver.
Title gve: prevent ethtool ops after shutdown
References

cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: Linux

Published:

Updated: 2025-09-05T17:20:35.459Z

Reserved: 2025-04-16T04:51:24.034Z

Link: CVE-2025-38735

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2025-09-05T18:15:42.817

Modified: 2025-09-05T18:15:42.817

Link: CVE-2025-38735

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.