Re: [PATCH net] netdev-genl: ignore NETDEV_UNREGISTER rebroadcasts

[Kuniyuki Iwashima <kuniyu@google.com>]

On Mon, 26 Oct 2026 15:28:44 -0700, Stanislav Fomichev wrote:
> On 10/26, Naman Gulati wrote:
> > netdev_wait_allrefs_any() re-sends NETDEV_UNREGISTER every second while
> > it waits for the last references on a device to be dropped. By then
> > netdev_run_todo() has already marked the device NETREG_UNREGISTERED and
> > RTNL has been dropped at least once since the initial notification sent
> > by unregister_netdevice_many_notify().
> > 
> > netdev_genl_netdevice_event() does not tell these rebroadcasts apart
> > from the initial notification and sends a NETDEV_CMD_DEV_DEL_NTF
> > multicast for each of them. At best this spams NETDEV_NLGRP_MGMT
> > listeners with duplicate notifications; at worst the pernet state of
> > the netns the device belongs to is already gone and the handler
> > dereferences a NULL pointer.
> > 
> > default_device_exit_batch() only unregisters the devices still listed
> > in the exiting netns; it does not wait for in-flight unregistrations of
> > devices that were already unlisted (the barrier doing that was removed
> > by commit 8a4fc54b07d7 ("net: get rid of rtnl_lock_unregistering()")).
> > So when a device is unregistered by something other than the
> > cleanup_net() of its own netns while references on it are still held,
> > e.g. a veth whose peer in another netns gets deleted, and that netns
> > exits while the device is stuck in netdev_wait_allrefs_any(), the
> > remaining pernet exit handlers run and genl_pernet_exit() sets
> > net->genl_sock to NULL. The next rebroadcast then crashes in
> > genl_has_listeners():
> > 
> >   BUG: KASAN: null-ptr-deref in netlink_has_listeners+0x3d/0x3f0 net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1388
> >   Read of size 8 at addr 0000000000000578 by task syz.0.0/5325
> >   Call Trace:
> >    <TASK>
> >    netlink_has_listeners+0x3d/0x3f0 net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1388
> >    genl_has_listeners include/net/genetlink.h:644 [inline]
> >    netdev_genl_dev_notify+0x161/0x450 net/core/netdev-genl.c:93
> >    netdev_genl_netdevice_event+0x98/0x3c0 net/core/netdev-genl.c:1491
> >    notifier_call_chain+0x1a5/0x3d0 kernel/notifier.c:85
> >    netdev_wait_allrefs_any net/core/dev.c:11690 [inline]
> >    netdev_run_todo+0x731/0x1060 net/core/dev.c:11808
> >    rtnl_unlock net/core/rtnetlink.c:157 [inline]
> >    rtnl_dellink+0x68f/0x810 net/core/rtnetlink.c:3707
> > 
> > syzbot hit this by moving one end of a veth pair into a short-lived
> > netns while netdevsim's deferred FIB event processing still held a
> > reference on it, and then deleting the other end (repro [1]). While the
> > source of this bug is netdevsim deferring FIB processing for and holding
> > onto the device reference for O(seconds) which is being fixed
> > separately [2], any driver may introduce such a delay and trigger the
> > null-ptr-deref.
> > 
> > Skip the rebroadcasts, which are the only NETDEV_UNREGISTER events
> > delivered with reg_state == NETREG_UNREGISTERED. The notifications sent
> > by unregister_netdevice_many_notify() and, for a device leaving a netns,
> > by __dev_change_net_namespace() are issued under RTNL in the same
> > critical section that unlists the device, before its netns can be torn
> > down, and keep being handled. This mirrors what ip6_route_dev_notify()
> > already does to cope with the rebroadcasts.
> > 
> > This change should not break the UAPI spec as it defines dev-del-ntf as
> > a "Notification about device disappearing." which is a single event. The
> > rebroadcast in netdev_wait_allrefs_any() exists to re-kick in-kernel
> > subsystems holding references; netdev-genl happens to be on the notifier
> > chain and forwards it.
> > 
> > [1] https://gist.github.com/NamanGulati/2d1b49b8757f9a88b0bd6e55018c02ae
> > [2] https://lore.kernel.org/r/20261023191517.607834-1-kuniyu@google.com
> > 
> > Fixes: d3d854fd6a1d ("netdev-genl: create a simple family for netdev stuff")
> > Reported-by: syzbot+1269fe6cc2016008124e@syzkaller.appspotmail.com
> > Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/6adf9f64.6200f071.51519.0ed1.GAE@google.com/
> > Reviewed-by: Kuniyuki Iwashima <kuniyu@google.com>
> > Signed-off-by: Naman Gulati <namangulati@google.com>
> > ---
> > Note that the reproducer attached to the syzbot bug targets a different
> > bug (via devlink_port_notify() on netns teardown) that happens to share
> > the same crash title, not the one in the original reported crash report.
> > ---
> >  net/core/netdev-genl.c | 6 ++++++
> >  1 file changed, 6 insertions(+)
> > 
> > diff --git a/net/core/netdev-genl.c b/net/core/netdev-genl.c
> > index 33b9f4eb9565a..2032ab9a864c2 100644
> > --- a/net/core/netdev-genl.c
> > +++ b/net/core/netdev-genl.c
> > @@ -1487,6 +1487,12 @@ static int netdev_genl_netdevice_event(struct notifier_block *nb,
> >  		netdev_unlock_full_to_ops(netdev);
> >  		break;
> >  	case NETDEV_UNREGISTER:
> > +		/* netdev_wait_allrefs_any() rebroadcasts NETDEV_UNREGISTER
> > +		 * while waiting for the last references to be dropped; the
> > +		 * netns may already be torn down by then. Notify only once.
> > +		 */
> 
> [..]
> 
> > +		if (READ_ONCE(netdev->reg_state) == NETREG_UNREGISTERED)
> > +			break;
> 
> Same as
> https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20261026063743.1797-1-lege.wang@jaguarmicro.com/
> ?
> 
> reg_state is protected by netdev, why not do this under netdev_lock?
> Also seems like we are fixing a symptom, not the problem?

fwiw, I suggested not to take the lock since we are only interested
in NETREG_UNREGISTERED here and there is a clear ordering in the case.

The root cause is netdevsim this time, and I have a fix,

https://syzkaller.appspot.com/text?tag=Patch&x=15923c21580000

but rebroadcast itself is not-ideal-but-valid behaviour, so each
NETDEV_UNREGISTER must be idempotent unless we can completley remove
the rebroadcast mechanism itself in the future.



> 
> >  		netdev_lock(netdev);
> >  		netdev_genl_dev_notify(netdev, NETDEV_CMD_DEV_DEL_NTF);
> >  		netdev_unlock(netdev);