From: Florian Westphal <fw@strlen.de>
To: Scott Mitchell <scott.k.mitch1@gmail.com>
Cc: netfilter-devel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: nfnetlink_queue crashes kernel
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2026 14:22:01 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <ac-w6e33txkgTRJj@strlen.de> (raw)
Hello,
nfnetlink_queue is currently broken in at least two ways.
1). kernel will crash under pressure because
struct nf_queue_entry is freed via kfree, but parallel
cpu can still observe this while walking the (global) rhashtable.
2) a4400a5b343d ("netfilter: nfnetlink_queue: nfqnl_instance GFP_ATOMIC -> GFP_KERNEL_ACCOUNT allocation") should have updated the spinlock to use the _bh variant, if the queue exists we risk deadlock via softirq recursion.
Minimal fix, that I am not a fan of:
diff --git a/include/net/netfilter/nf_queue.h b/include/net/netfilter/nf_queue.h
--- a/include/net/netfilter/nf_queue.h
+++ b/include/net/netfilter/nf_queue.h
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ struct nf_queue_entry {
bool nf_ct_is_unconfirmed;
u16 size; /* sizeof(entry) + saved route keys */
u16 queue_num;
+ struct rcu_head head;
/* extra space to store route keys */
};
diff --git a/net/netfilter/nf_queue.c b/net/netfilter/nf_queue.c
index 7f12e56e6e52..385d1fe704ae 100644
--- a/net/netfilter/nf_queue.c
+++ b/net/netfilter/nf_queue.c
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ static void nf_queue_entry_release_refs(struct nf_queue_entry *entry)
void nf_queue_entry_free(struct nf_queue_entry *entry)
{
nf_queue_entry_release_refs(entry);
- kfree(entry);
+ kfree_rcu(entry, head);
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(nf_queue_entry_free);
diff --git a/net/netfilter/nfnetlink_queue.c b/net/netfilter/nfnetlink_queue.c
index 47f7f62906e2..fc44ea4e5128 100644
--- a/net/netfilter/nfnetlink_queue.c
+++ b/net/netfilter/nfnetlink_queue.c
@@ -190,7 +190,7 @@ instance_create(struct nfnl_queue_net *q, u_int16_t queue_num, u32 portid)
spin_lock_init(&inst->lock);
INIT_LIST_HEAD(&inst->queue_list);
- spin_lock(&q->instances_lock);
+ spin_lock_bh(&q->instances_lock);
if (instance_lookup(q, queue_num)) {
err = -EEXIST;
goto out_unlock;
@@ -204,7 +204,7 @@ instance_create(struct nfnl_queue_net *q, u_int16_t queue_num, u32 portid)
h = instance_hashfn(queue_num);
hlist_add_head_rcu(&inst->hlist, &q->instance_table[h]);
- spin_unlock(&q->instances_lock);
+ spin_unlock_bh(&q->instances_lock);
return inst;
A probably better fix is to make the rhashtable perqueue, which is
much more intrusive at this late stage.
I prefer to revert both changes and not accept a reworked hashtable
until we have an extension to nft_queue.sh selftest.
Anything using queue balancing (pacing packets to n queues) with
enough streams to have parallel invocation of the rhashtable should
demonstrate the crash.
Thoughts?
next reply other threads:[~2026-04-03 12:22 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 12+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-04-03 12:22 Florian Westphal [this message]
2026-04-03 13:45 ` nfnetlink_queue crashes kernel Florian Westphal
2026-04-03 15:55 ` Scott Mitchell
2026-04-03 19:14 ` Florian Westphal
2026-04-03 23:57 ` Fernando Fernandez Mancera
2026-04-04 9:40 ` Florian Westphal
2026-04-06 12:54 ` Fernando Fernandez Mancera
2026-04-06 17:10 ` Florian Westphal
2026-04-06 20:04 ` Fernando Fernandez Mancera
2026-04-06 14:01 ` Fernando Fernandez Mancera
2026-04-03 13:59 ` Florian Westphal
2026-04-03 14:02 ` Pablo Neira Ayuso
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