[PATCH 6.12 327/567] ipv4: Fix reference count leak when using error routes with nexthop objects

Greg Kroah-Hartman
2026-01-06T17:32:16Z

From: Ido Schimmel <idosch@nvidia.com>

[ Upstream commit ac782f4e3bfcde145b8a7f8af31d9422d94d172a ]

When a nexthop object is deleted, it is marked as dead and then
fib_table_flush() is called to flush all the routes that are using the
dead nexthop.

The current logic in fib_table_flush() is to only flush error routes
(e.g., blackhole) when it is called as part of network namespace
dismantle (i.e., with flush_all=true). Therefore, error routes are not
flushed when their nexthop object is deleted:

# ip link add name dummy1 up type dummy
# ip nexthop add id 1 dev dummy1
# ip route add 198.51.100.1/32 nhid 1
# ip route add blackhole 198.51.100.2/32 nhid 1
# ip nexthop del id 1
# ip route show
blackhole 198.51.100.2 nhid 1 dev dummy1

As such, they keep holding a reference on the nexthop object which in
turn holds a reference on the nexthop device, resulting in a reference
count leak:

# ip link del dev dummy1
[ 70.516258] unregister_netdevice: waiting for dummy1 to become free. Usage count = 2

Fix by flushing error routes when their nexthop is marked as dead.

IPv6 does not suffer from this problem.

Fixes: 493ced1ac47c ("ipv4: Allow routes to use nexthop objects")
Reported-by: Tetsuo Handa <penguin-kernel@I-love.SAKURA.ne.jp>
Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/d943f806-4da6-4970-ac28-b9373b0e63ac@I-love.SAKURA.ne.jp/
Reported-by: syzbot+881d65229ca4f9ae8c84@syzkaller.appspotmail.com
Signed-off-by: Ido Schimmel <idosch@nvidia.com>
Reviewed-by: David Ahern <dsahern@kernel.org>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20251221144829.197694-1-idosch@nvidia.com
Signed-off-by: Paolo Abeni <pabeni@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
---
net/ipv4/fib_trie.c | 7 ++++---
1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/net/ipv4/fib_trie.c b/net/ipv4/fib_trie.c
index cc86031d2050..658f26d9a9ec 100644
--- a/net/ipv4/fib_trie.c
+++ b/net/ipv4/fib_trie.c
@@ -2059,10 +2059,11 @@ int fib_table_flush(struct net *net, struct fib_table *tb, bool flush_all)
continue;
}

- /* Do not flush error routes if network namespace is
- * not being dismantled
+ /* When not flushing the entire table, skip error
+ * routes that are not marked for deletion.
*/
- if (!flush_all && fib_props[fa->fa_type].error) {
+ if (!flush_all && fib_props[fa->fa_type].error &&
+ !(fi->fib_flags & RTNH_F_DEAD)) {
slen = fa->fa_slen;
continue;
}
--
2.51.0