[PATCH 6.18 154/175] netfilter: nf_tables: fix inverted genmask check in nft_map_catchall_activate()

Greg Kroah-Hartman
2026-02-09T14:33:44Z

From: Andrew Fasano <andrew.fasano@nist.gov>

[ Upstream commit f41c5d151078c5348271ffaf8e7410d96f2d82f8 ]

nft_map_catchall_activate() has an inverted element activity check
compared to its non-catchall counterpart nft_mapelem_activate() and
compared to what is logically required.

nft_map_catchall_activate() is called from the abort path to re-activate
catchall map elements that were deactivated during a failed transaction.
It should skip elements that are already active (they don't need
re-activation) and process elements that are inactive (they need to be
restored). Instead, the current code does the opposite: it skips inactive
elements and processes active ones.

Compare the non-catchall activate callback, which is correct:

nft_mapelem_activate():
if (nft_set_elem_active(ext, iter->genmask))
return 0; /* skip active, process inactive */

With the buggy catchall version:

nft_map_catchall_activate():
if (!nft_set_elem_active(ext, genmask))
continue; /* skip inactive, process active */

The consequence is that when a DELSET operation is aborted,
nft_setelem_data_activate() is never called for the catchall element.
For NFT_GOTO verdict elements, this means nft_data_hold() is never
called to restore the chain->use reference count. Each abort cycle
permanently decrements chain->use. Once chain->use reaches zero,
DELCHAIN succeeds and frees the chain while catchall verdict elements
still reference it, resulting in a use-after-free.

This is exploitable for local privilege escalation from an unprivileged
user via user namespaces + nftables on distributions that enable
CONFIG_USER_NS and CONFIG_NF_TABLES.

Fix by removing the negation so the check matches nft_mapelem_activate():
skip active elements, process inactive ones.

Fixes: 628bd3e49cba ("netfilter: nf_tables: drop map element references from preparation phase")
Signed-off-by: Andrew Fasano <andrew.fasano@nist.gov>
Signed-off-by: Florian Westphal <fw@strlen.de>
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
---
net/netfilter/nf_tables_api.c | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/net/netfilter/nf_tables_api.c b/net/netfilter/nf_tables_api.c
index 3cbf2573b9e90..6059a299004d4 100644
--- a/net/netfilter/nf_tables_api.c
+++ b/net/netfilter/nf_tables_api.c
@@ -5917,7 +5917,7 @@ static void nft_map_catchall_activate(const struct nft_ctx *ctx,

list_for_each_entry(catchall, &set->catchall_list, list) {
ext = nft_set_elem_ext(set, catchall->elem);
- if (!nft_set_elem_active(ext, genmask))
+ if (nft_set_elem_active(ext, genmask))
continue;

nft_clear(ctx->net, ext);
--
2.51.0