QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) built with the e1000 NIC emulation support is vulnerable to an infinite loop issue. It could occur while processing data via transmit or receive descriptors, provided the initial receive/transmit descriptor head (TDH/RDH) is set outside the allocated descriptor buffer. A privileged user inside guest could use this flaw to crash the QEMU instance resulting in DoS.
The ehci_process_itd function in hw/usb/hcd-ehci.c in QEMU allows local guest OS administrators to cause a denial of service (infinite loop and CPU consumption) via a circular isochronous transfer descriptor (iTD) list.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: PM / devfreq: Synchronize devfreq_monitor_[start/stop] There is a chance if a frequent switch of the governor done in a loop result in timer list corruption where timer cancel being done from two place one from cancel_delayed_work_sync() and followed by expire_timers() can be seen from the traces[1]. while true do echo "simple_ondemand" > /sys/class/devfreq/1d84000.ufshc/governor echo "performance" > /sys/class/devfreq/1d84000.ufshc/governor done It looks to be issue with devfreq driver where device_monitor_[start/stop] need to synchronized so that delayed work should get corrupted while it is either being queued or running or being cancelled. Let's use polling flag and devfreq lock to synchronize the queueing the timer instance twice and work data being corrupted. [1] ... .. <idle>-0 [003] 9436.209662: timer_cancel timer=0xffffff80444f0428 <idle>-0 [003] 9436.209664: timer_expire_entry timer=0xffffff80444f0428 now=0x10022da1c function=__typeid__ZTSFvP10timer_listE_global_addr baseclk=0x10022da1c <idle>-0 [003] 9436.209718: timer_expire_exit timer=0xffffff80444f0428 kworker/u16:6-14217 [003] 9436.209863: timer_start timer=0xffffff80444f0428 function=__typeid__ZTSFvP10timer_listE_global_addr expires=0x10022da2b now=0x10022da1c flags=182452227 vendor.xxxyyy.ha-1593 [004] 9436.209888: timer_cancel timer=0xffffff80444f0428 vendor.xxxyyy.ha-1593 [004] 9436.216390: timer_init timer=0xffffff80444f0428 vendor.xxxyyy.ha-1593 [004] 9436.216392: timer_start timer=0xffffff80444f0428 function=__typeid__ZTSFvP10timer_listE_global_addr expires=0x10022da2c now=0x10022da1d flags=186646532 vendor.xxxyyy.ha-1593 [005] 9436.220992: timer_cancel timer=0xffffff80444f0428 xxxyyyTraceManag-7795 [004] 9436.261641: timer_cancel timer=0xffffff80444f0428 [2] 9436.261653][ C4] Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address dead00000000012a [ 9436.261664][ C4] Mem abort info: [ 9436.261666][ C4] ESR = 0x96000044 [ 9436.261669][ C4] EC = 0x25: DABT (current EL), IL = 32 bits [ 9436.261671][ C4] SET = 0, FnV = 0 [ 9436.261673][ C4] EA = 0, S1PTW = 0 [ 9436.261675][ C4] Data abort info: [ 9436.261677][ C4] ISV = 0, ISS = 0x00000044 [ 9436.261680][ C4] CM = 0, WnR = 1 [ 9436.261682][ C4] [dead00000000012a] address between user and kernel address ranges [ 9436.261685][ C4] Internal error: Oops: 96000044 [#1] PREEMPT SMP [ 9436.261701][ C4] Skip md ftrace buffer dump for: 0x3a982d0 ... [ 9436.262138][ C4] CPU: 4 PID: 7795 Comm: TraceManag Tainted: G S W O 5.10.149-android12-9-o-g17f915d29d0c #1 [ 9436.262141][ C4] Hardware name: Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. (DT) [ 9436.262144][ C4] pstate: 22400085 (nzCv daIf +PAN -UAO +TCO BTYPE=--) [ 9436.262161][ C4] pc : expire_timers+0x9c/0x438 [ 9436.262164][ C4] lr : expire_timers+0x2a4/0x438 [ 9436.262168][ C4] sp : ffffffc010023dd0 [ 9436.262171][ C4] x29: ffffffc010023df0 x28: ffffffd0636fdc18 [ 9436.262178][ C4] x27: ffffffd063569dd0 x26: ffffffd063536008 [ 9436.262182][ C4] x25: 0000000000000001 x24: ffffff88f7c69280 [ 9436.262185][ C4] x23: 00000000000000e0 x22: dead000000000122 [ 9436.262188][ C4] x21: 000000010022da29 x20: ffffff8af72b4e80 [ 9436.262191][ C4] x19: ffffffc010023e50 x18: ffffffc010025038 [ 9436.262195][ C4] x17: 0000000000000240 x16: 0000000000000201 [ 9436.262199][ C4] x15: ffffffffffffffff x14: ffffff889f3c3100 [ 9436.262203][ C4] x13: ffffff889f3c3100 x12: 00000000049f56b8 [ 9436.262207][ C4] x11: 00000000049f56b8 x10: 00000000ffffffff [ 9436.262212][ C4] x9 : ffffffc010023e50 x8 : dead000000000122 [ 9436.262216][ C4] x7 : ffffffffffffffff x6 : ffffffc0100239d8 [ 9436.262220][ C4] x5 : 0000000000000000 x4 : 0000000000000101 [ 9436.262223][ C4] x3 : 0000000000000080 x2 : ffffff8 ---truncated---
A lack of CPU resource in the Linux kernel tracing module functionality in versions prior to 5.14-rc3 was found in the way user uses trace ring buffer in a specific way. Only privileged local users (with CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability) could use this flaw to starve the resources causing denial of service.
A flaw was found in avahi in versions 0.6 up to 0.8. The event used to signal the termination of the client connection on the avahi Unix socket is not correctly handled in the client_work function, allowing a local attacker to trigger an infinite loop. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to the availability of the avahi service, which becomes unresponsive after this flaw is triggered.
An infinite loop flaw was found in the e1000 NIC emulator of the QEMU. This issue occurs while processing transmits (tx) descriptors in process_tx_desc if various descriptor fields are initialized with invalid values. This flaw allows a guest to consume CPU cycles on the host, resulting in a denial of service. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.
A potential stack overflow via infinite loop issue was found in various NIC emulators of QEMU in versions up to and including 5.2.0. The issue occurs in loopback mode of a NIC wherein reentrant DMA checks get bypassed. A guest user/process may use this flaw to consume CPU cycles or crash the QEMU process on the host resulting in DoS scenario.
long running loops in grant table handling In order to properly monitor resource use, Xen maintains information on the grant mappings a domain may create to map grants offered by other domains. In the process of carrying out certain actions, Xen would iterate over all such entries, including ones which aren't in use anymore and some which may have been created but never used. If the number of entries for a given domain is large enough, this iterating of the entire table may tie up a CPU for too long, starving other domains or causing issues in the hypervisor itself. Note that a domain may map its own grants, i.e. there is no need for multiple domains to be involved here. A pair of "cooperating" guests may, however, cause the effects to be more severe.
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.12.x allowing Arm domU attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop) involving a compare-and-exchange operation.
An issue was discovered in the Linux kernel before 5.8. arch/x86/kvm/svm/svm.c allows a set_memory_region_test infinite loop for certain nested page faults, aka CID-e72436bc3a52.
GNU patch is vulnerable to a denial of service (DoS) due to improper validation of hunk (single block of changes in diff) line offsets in unified-diff input. A specially crafted patch can specify an extremely large line number, causing the application to enter an effectively infinite processing loop while attempting to locate the requested position. This results in excessive CPU consumption and prevents the process from completing. An attacker can trigger this behavior by supplying a malicious patch file, causing the utility to become unresponsive and require manual termination. This issue has been fixed in the commit faba04ef4f2b410257f76c1b9dc85e350929c4b9
hw/net/e1000e_core.c in QEMU 5.0.0 has an infinite loop via an RX descriptor with a NULL buffer address.
A stack overflow via an infinite recursion vulnerability was found in the eepro100 i8255x device emulator of QEMU. This issue occurs while processing controller commands due to a DMA reentry issue. This flaw allows a guest user or process to consume CPU cycles or crash the QEMU process on the host, resulting in a denial of service. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.
In QEMU 1:4.1-1, 1:2.1+dfsg-12+deb8u6, 1:2.8+dfsg-6+deb9u8, 1:3.1+dfsg-8~deb10u1, 1:3.1+dfsg-8+deb10u2, and 1:2.1+dfsg-12+deb8u12 (fixed), when executing script in lsi_execute_script(), the LSI scsi adapter emulator advances 's->dsp' index to read next opcode. This can lead to an infinite loop if the next opcode is empty. Move the existing loop exit after 10k iterations so that it covers no-op opcodes as well.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: page_pool: avoid infinite loop to schedule delayed worker We noticed the kworker in page_pool_release_retry() was waken up repeatedly and infinitely in production because of the buggy driver causing the inflight less than 0 and warning us in page_pool_inflight()[1]. Since the inflight value goes negative, it means we should not expect the whole page_pool to get back to work normally. This patch mitigates the adverse effect by not rescheduling the kworker when detecting the inflight negative in page_pool_release_retry(). [1] [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] Negative(-51446) inflight packet-pages ... [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] Call Trace: [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] page_pool_release_retry+0x23/0x70 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] process_one_work+0x1b1/0x370 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] worker_thread+0x37/0x3a0 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] kthread+0x11a/0x140 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] ? process_one_work+0x370/0x370 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] ? __kthread_cancel_work+0x40/0x40 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] ret_from_fork+0x35/0x40 [Mon Feb 10 20:36:11 2025] ---[ end trace ebffe800f33e7e34 ]--- Note: before this patch, the above calltrace would flood the dmesg due to repeated reschedule of release_dw kworker.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ipv6: fix possible infinite loop in fib6_info_uses_dev() fib6_info_uses_dev() seems to rely on RCU without an explicit protection. Like the prior fix in rt6_nlmsg_size(), we need to make sure fib6_del_route() or fib6_add_rt2node() have not removed the anchor from the list, or we risk an infinite loop.
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's implementation of biovecs in versions before 5.9-rc7. A zero-length biovec request issued by the block subsystem could cause the kernel to enter an infinite loop, causing a denial of service. This flaw allows a local attacker with basic privileges to issue requests to a block device, resulting in a denial of service. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.
Infinite Loop in zziplib v0.13.69 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service via the return value "zzip_file_read" in the function "unzzip_cat_file".
QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) built with the ColdFire Fast Ethernet Controller emulator support is vulnerable to an infinite loop issue. It could occur while receiving packets in 'mcf_fec_receive'. A privileged user/process inside guest could use this issue to crash the QEMU process on the host leading to DoS.
QEMU (aka Quick Emulator), when built with USB xHCI controller emulator support, allows local guest OS privileged users to cause a denial of service (infinite recursive call) via vectors involving control transfer descriptors sequencing.
The xhci_kick_epctx function in hw/usb/hcd-xhci.c in QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) allows local guest OS privileged users to cause a denial of service (infinite loop and QEMU process crash) via vectors related to control transfer descriptor sequence.
The sdhci_sdma_transfer_multi_blocks function in hw/sd/sdhci.c in QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) allows local OS guest privileged users to cause a denial of service (infinite loop and QEMU process crash) via vectors involving the transfer mode register during multi block transfer.
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.12.x allowing Arm domU attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop) involving a LoadExcl or StoreExcl operation.
A list management bug in BSS handling in the mac80211 stack in the Linux kernel 5.1 through 5.19.x before 5.19.16 could be used by local attackers (able to inject WLAN frames) to corrupt a linked list and, in turn, potentially execute code.
The mcf_fec_do_tx function in hw/net/mcf_fec.c in QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) does not properly limit the buffer descriptor count when transmitting packets, which allows local guest OS administrators to cause a denial of service (infinite loop and QEMU process crash) via vectors involving a buffer descriptor with a length of 0 and crafted values in bd.flags.
In PHP versions before 7.4.31, 8.0.24 and 8.1.11, the phar uncompressor code would recursively uncompress "quines" gzip files, resulting in an infinite loop.
The intel_hda_xfer function in hw/audio/intel-hda.c in QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) allows local guest OS administrators to cause a denial of service (infinite loop and CPU consumption) via an entry with the same value for buffer length and pointer position.
The rtl8139_cplus_transmit function in hw/net/rtl8139.c in QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) allows local guest OS administrators to cause a denial of service (infinite loop and CPU consumption) by leveraging failure to limit the ring descriptor count.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net_sched: hfsc: Address reentrant enqueue adding class to eltree twice Savino says: "We are writing to report that this recent patch (141d34391abbb315d68556b7c67ad97885407547) [1] can be bypassed, and a UAF can still occur when HFSC is utilized with NETEM. The patch only checks the cl->cl_nactive field to determine whether it is the first insertion or not [2], but this field is only incremented by init_vf [3]. By using HFSC_RSC (which uses init_ed) [4], it is possible to bypass the check and insert the class twice in the eltree. Under normal conditions, this would lead to an infinite loop in hfsc_dequeue for the reasons we already explained in this report [5]. However, if TBF is added as root qdisc and it is configured with a very low rate, it can be utilized to prevent packets from being dequeued. This behavior can be exploited to perform subsequent insertions in the HFSC eltree and cause a UAF." To fix both the UAF and the infinite loop, with netem as an hfsc child, check explicitly in hfsc_enqueue whether the class is already in the eltree whenever the HFSC_RSC flag is set. [1] https://web.git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=141d34391abbb315d68556b7c67ad97885407547 [2] https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v6.15-rc5/source/net/sched/sch_hfsc.c#L1572 [3] https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v6.15-rc5/source/net/sched/sch_hfsc.c#L677 [4] https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v6.15-rc5/source/net/sched/sch_hfsc.c#L1574 [5] https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/8DuRWwfqjoRDLDmBMlIfbrsZg9Gx50DHJc1ilxsEBNe2D6NMoigR_eIRIG0LOjMc3r10nUUZtArXx4oZBIdUfZQrwjcQhdinnMis_0G7VEk=@willsroot.io/T/#u
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: netlink: avoid infinite retry looping in netlink_unicast() netlink_attachskb() checks for the socket's read memory allocation constraints. Firstly, it has: rmem < READ_ONCE(sk->sk_rcvbuf) to check if the just increased rmem value fits into the socket's receive buffer. If not, it proceeds and tries to wait for the memory under: rmem + skb->truesize > READ_ONCE(sk->sk_rcvbuf) The checks don't cover the case when skb->truesize + sk->sk_rmem_alloc is equal to sk->sk_rcvbuf. Thus the function neither successfully accepts these conditions, nor manages to reschedule the task - and is called in retry loop for indefinite time which is caught as: rcu: INFO: rcu_sched self-detected stall on CPU rcu: 0-....: (25999 ticks this GP) idle=ef2/1/0x4000000000000000 softirq=262269/262269 fqs=6212 (t=26000 jiffies g=230833 q=259957) NMI backtrace for cpu 0 CPU: 0 PID: 22 Comm: kauditd Not tainted 5.10.240 #68 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.17.0-4.fc42 04/01/2014 Call Trace: <IRQ> dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:120 nmi_cpu_backtrace.cold lib/nmi_backtrace.c:105 nmi_trigger_cpumask_backtrace lib/nmi_backtrace.c:62 rcu_dump_cpu_stacks kernel/rcu/tree_stall.h:335 rcu_sched_clock_irq.cold kernel/rcu/tree.c:2590 update_process_times kernel/time/timer.c:1953 tick_sched_handle kernel/time/tick-sched.c:227 tick_sched_timer kernel/time/tick-sched.c:1399 __hrtimer_run_queues kernel/time/hrtimer.c:1652 hrtimer_interrupt kernel/time/hrtimer.c:1717 __sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt arch/x86/kernel/apic/apic.c:1113 asm_call_irq_on_stack arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:808 </IRQ> netlink_attachskb net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1234 netlink_unicast net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1349 kauditd_send_queue kernel/audit.c:776 kauditd_thread kernel/audit.c:897 kthread kernel/kthread.c:328 ret_from_fork arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:304 Restore the original behavior of the check which commit in Fixes accidentally missed when restructuring the code. Found by Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org).
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ipv6: prevent infinite loop in rt6_nlmsg_size() While testing prior patch, I was able to trigger an infinite loop in rt6_nlmsg_size() in the following place: list_for_each_entry_rcu(sibling, &f6i->fib6_siblings, fib6_siblings) { rt6_nh_nlmsg_size(sibling->fib6_nh, &nexthop_len); } This is because fib6_del_route() and fib6_add_rt2node() uses list_del_rcu(), which can confuse rcu readers, because they might no longer see the head of the list. Restart the loop if f6i->fib6_nsiblings is zero.
arch/x86/kvm/mmu/paging_tmpl.h in the Linux kernel before 5.12.11 incorrectly computes the access permissions of a shadow page, leading to a missing guest protection page fault.
QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) built with a VMWARE VMXNET3 paravirtual NIC emulator support is vulnerable to crash issue. It occurs when a guest sends a Layer-2 packet smaller than 22 bytes. A privileged (CAP_SYS_RAWIO) guest user could use this flaw to crash the QEMU process instance resulting in DoS.
A memory leak flaw was found in the Linux kernel in the ccp_run_aes_gcm_cmd() function in drivers/crypto/ccp/ccp-ops.c, which allows attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption). This vulnerability is similar with the older CVE-2019-18808.
A memory overflow vulnerability was found in the Linux kernel’s ipc functionality of the memcg subsystem, in the way a user calls the semget function multiple times, creating semaphores. This flaw allows a local user to starve the resources, causing a denial of service. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x. There is a lack of preemption in evtchn_reset() / evtchn_destroy(). In particular, the FIFO event channel model allows guests to have a large number of event channels active at a time. Closing all of these (when resetting all event channels or when cleaning up after the guest) may take extended periods of time. So far, there was no arrangement for preemption at suitable intervals, allowing a CPU to spend an almost unbounded amount of time in the processing of these operations. Malicious or buggy guest kernels can mount a Denial of Service (DoS) attack affecting the entire system. All Xen versions are vulnerable in principle. Whether versions 4.3 and older are vulnerable depends on underlying hardware characteristics.
Unspecified vulnerability in the Oracle VM VirtualBox component in Oracle Virtualization VirtualBox before 4.3.36 and before 5.0.14 allows local users to affect availability via unknown vectors related to Core.
Unspecified vulnerability in Oracle MySQL 5.5.46 and earlier allows local users to affect availability via vectors related to Optimizer.
A flaw was found in indent, a program for formatting C code. This issue may allow an attacker to trick a user into processing a specially crafted file to trigger a heap-based buffer overflow, causing the application to crash.
A use-after-free flaw was found in the MegaRAID emulator of QEMU. This issue occurs while processing SCSI I/O requests in the case of an error mptsas_free_request() that does not dequeue the request object 'req' from a pending requests queue. This flaw allows a privileged guest user to crash the QEMU process on the host, resulting in a denial of service. Versions between 2.10.0 and 5.2.0 are potentially affected.
Vulnerability in the Oracle Solaris component of Oracle Sun Systems Products Suite (subcomponent: File Locking Services). The supported version that is affected is 11. Easily exploitable vulnerability allows low privileged attacker with logon to the infrastructure where Oracle Solaris executes to compromise Oracle Solaris. Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in unauthorized ability to cause a partial denial of service (partial DOS) of Oracle Solaris. CVSS 3.0 Base Score 3.3 (Availability impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L).
Vulnerability in the Oracle VM VirtualBox product of Oracle Virtualization (component: Core). Supported versions that are affected are Prior to 5.2.34 and prior to 6.0.14. Easily exploitable vulnerability allows high privileged attacker with logon to the infrastructure where Oracle VM VirtualBox executes to compromise Oracle VM VirtualBox. While the vulnerability is in Oracle VM VirtualBox, attacks may significantly impact additional products. Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in unauthorized ability to cause a hang or frequently repeatable crash (complete DOS) of Oracle VM VirtualBox. CVSS 3.0 Base Score 6.0 (Availability impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H).
Multiple buffer overflows in the XML Database (XDB) functionality for Oracle 9i Database Release 2 allow local users to cause a denial of service or hijack user sessions.
Zebra 0.93b and earlier, and quagga before 0.95, allows local users to cause a denial of service by sending spoofed messages as other users to the kernel netlink interface.
QEMU (aka Quick Emulator) built with a VMWARE VMXNET3 paravirtual NIC emulator support is vulnerable to crash issue. It could occur while reading Interrupt Mask Registers (IMR). A privileged (CAP_SYS_RAWIO) guest user could use this flaw to crash the QEMU process instance resulting in DoS.
A memory leak was discovered in the backport of fixes for CVE-2018-16864 in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Function dispatch_message_real() in journald-server.c does not free the memory allocated by set_iovec_field_free() to store the `_CMDLINE=` entry. A local attacker may use this flaw to make systemd-journald crash. This issue only affects versions shipped with Red Hat Enterprise since v219-62.2.
Vulnerability in the Oracle VM VirtualBox component of Oracle Virtualization (subcomponent: Core). Supported versions that are affected are Prior to 5.2.32 and prior to 6.0.10. Easily exploitable vulnerability allows low privileged attacker with logon to the infrastructure where Oracle VM VirtualBox executes to compromise Oracle VM VirtualBox. Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in unauthorized ability to cause a partial denial of service (partial DOS) of Oracle VM VirtualBox. CVSS 3.0 Base Score 3.3 (Availability impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L).
Vulnerability in the Oracle VM VirtualBox product of Oracle Virtualization (component: Core). Supported versions that are affected are Prior to 5.2.34 and prior to 6.0.14. Easily exploitable vulnerability allows high privileged attacker with logon to the infrastructure where Oracle VM VirtualBox executes to compromise Oracle VM VirtualBox. While the vulnerability is in Oracle VM VirtualBox, attacks may significantly impact additional products. Successful attacks of this vulnerability can result in unauthorized ability to cause a hang or frequently repeatable crash (complete DOS) of Oracle VM VirtualBox. CVSS 3.0 Base Score 6.0 (Availability impacts). CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H).
ls in the fileutils or coreutils packages allows local users to consume a large amount of memory via a large -w value, which can be remotely exploited via applications that use ls, such as wu-ftpd.
btrfs in the Linux kernel before 5.13.4 allows attackers to cause a denial of service (deadlock) via processes that trigger allocation of new system chunks during times when there is a shortage of free space in the system space_info.