CVE-2020-15566
Description
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.13.x, allowing guest OS users to cause a host OS crash because of incorrect error handling in event-channel port allocation. The allocation of an event-channel port may fail for multiple reasons: (1) port is already in use, (2) the memory allocation failed, or (3) the port we try to allocate is higher than what is supported by the ABI (e.g., 2L or FIFO) used by the guest or the limit set by an administrator (max_event_channels in xl cfg). Due to the missing error checks, only (1) will be considered an error. All the other cases will provide a valid port and will result in a crash when trying to access the event channel. When the administrator configured a guest to allow more than 1023 event channels, that guest may be able to crash the host. When Xen is out-of-memory, allocation of new event channels will result in crashing the host rather than reporting an error. Xen versions 4.10 and later are affected. All architectures are affected. The default configuration, when guests are created with xl/libxl, is not vulnerable, because of the default event-channel limit.
Predictions
Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.
Mitigations
No mitigations published for this CVE yet.
The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or — if you've already worked around this in production — publish your fix to the community-verified tier.
✚ Propose a mitigation on Community → Mitigations published via the community go through AI scoring + 2 human reviewers + 7-day silent objection window before landing here withsource_tier=community-verified.
OS impact
Debian Fixed 5 releases
| Version | Status | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| trixie | Fixed | 4.11.4+24-gddaaccbbab-1 |
| sid | Fixed | 4.11.4+24-gddaaccbbab-1 |
| forky | Fixed | 4.11.4+24-gddaaccbbab-1 |
| bullseye | Fixed | 4.11.4+24-gddaaccbbab-1 |
| bookworm | Fixed | 4.11.4+24-gddaaccbbab-1 |
References
Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.
Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.