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Unity Linux 20.1070e Security Update: kernel (UTSA-2025-986936)
medium Nessus Plugin ID 268880
Synopsis
The Unity Linux host is missing one or more security updates.Description
The Unity Linux 20 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the UTSA-2025-986936 advisory.In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
btrfs: fix memory ordering between normal and ordered work functions
Ordered work functions aren't guaranteed to be handled by the same thread which executed the normal work functions. The only way execution between normal/ordered functions is synchronized is via the WORK_DONE_BIT, unfortunately the used bitops don't guarantee any ordering whatsoever.
This manifested as seemingly inexplicable crashes on ARM64, where async_chunk::inode is seen as non-null in async_cow_submit which causes submit_compressed_extents to be called and crash occurs because async_chunk::inode suddenly became NULL. The call trace was similar to:
pc : submit_compressed_extents+0x38/0x3d0 lr : async_cow_submit+0x50/0xd0 sp : ffff800015d4bc20
<registers omitted for brevity>
Call trace:
submit_compressed_extents+0x38/0x3d0 async_cow_submit+0x50/0xd0 run_ordered_work+0xc8/0x280 btrfs_work_helper+0x98/0x250 process_one_work+0x1f0/0x4ac worker_thread+0x188/0x504 kthread+0x110/0x114 ret_from_fork+0x10/0x18
Fix this by adding respective barrier calls which ensure that all accesses preceding setting of WORK_DONE_BIT are strictly ordered before setting the flag. At the same time add a read barrier after reading of WORK_DONE_BIT in run_ordered_work which ensures all subsequent loads would be strictly ordered after reading the bit. This in turn ensures are all accesses before WORK_DONE_BIT are going to be strictly ordered before any access that can occur in ordered_func.
Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Unity Linux security advisory.
Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.
See Also
http://www.nessus.org/u?d97cfcac
Plugin Details
Severity: Medium
ID: 268880
File Name: unity_linux_UTSA-2025-986936.nasl
Version: 1.1
Type: local
Published: 10/7/2025
Updated: 10/7/2025
Supported Sensors: Nessus
Risk Information
VPR
Risk Factor: Medium
Score: 4.2
CVSS v2
Risk Factor: Medium
Base Score: 4.6
Temporal Score: 3.4
Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:C
CVSS Score Source: CVE-2021-47189
CVSS v3
Risk Factor: Medium
Base Score: 6.3
Temporal Score: 5.5
Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L
Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C
Vulnerability Information
Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/cpu, Host/UOS-Server/release, Host/UOS-Server/rpm-list
Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available
Patch Publication Date: 9/23/2025
Vulnerability Publication Date: 7/21/2021
Reference Information
CVE: CVE-2021-47189