ARM: davinci: da850-evm: Avoid NULL pointer dereference

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ARM: davinci: da850-evm: Avoid NULL pointer dereference With newer versions of GCC, there is a panic in da850_evm_config_emac() when booting multi_v5_defconfig in QEMU under the palmetto-bmc machine: Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000020 pgd = (ptrval) [00000020] *pgd=00000000 Internal error: Oops: 5 [#1] PREEMPT ARM Modules linked in: CPU: 0 PID: 1 Comm: swapper Not tainted 5.15.0 #1 Hardware name: Generic DT based system PC is at da850_evm_config_emac+0x1c/0x120 LR is at do_one_initcall+0x50/0x1e0 The emac_pdata pointer in soc_info is NULL because davinci_soc_info only gets populated on davinci machines but da850_evm_config_emac() is called on all machines via device_initcall(). Move the rmii_en assignment below the machine check so that it is only dereferenced when running on a supported SoC.

Timeline

1. Feb 26, 2025, 1:54 AM UTCCVE published
2. Oct 1, 2025, 7:51 PM UTCCISA SSVC assessment

   Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial

3. May 11, 2026, 1:58 PM UTCRecord last updated

Affected versions

• Linux Linux

  Version range not reported

• Linux Linux

  2.6.33

References 8