[PATCH 6.19 233/342] virtio_net: Fix UAF on dst_ops when IFF_XMIT_DST_RELEASE is cleared and napi_tx is false

Greg Kroah-Hartman
2026-03-31T16:42:04Z

From: xietangxin <xietangxin@yeah.net>

commit ba8bda9a0896746053aa97ac6c3e08168729172c upstream.

A UAF issue occurs when the virtio_net driver is configured with napi_tx=N
and the device's IFF_XMIT_DST_RELEASE flag is cleared
(e.g., during the configuration of tc route filter rules).

When IFF_XMIT_DST_RELEASE is removed from the net_device, the network stack
expects the driver to hold the reference to skb->dst until the packet
is fully transmitted and freed. In virtio_net with napi_tx=N,
skbs may remain in the virtio transmit ring for an extended period.

If the network namespace is destroyed while these skbs are still pending,
the corresponding dst_ops structure has freed. When a subsequent packet
is transmitted, free_old_xmit() is triggered to clean up old skbs.
It then calls dst_release() on the skb associated with the stale dst_entry.
Since the dst_ops (referenced by the dst_entry) has already been freed,
a UAF kernel paging request occurs.

fix it by adds skb_dst_drop(skb) in start_xmit to explicitly release
the dst reference before the skb is queued in virtio_net.

Call Trace:
Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address ffff80007e150000
CPU: 2 UID: 0 PID: 6236 Comm: ping Kdump: loaded Not tainted 7.0.0-rc1+ #6 PREEMPT
...
percpu_counter_add_batch+0x3c/0x158 lib/percpu_counter.c:98 (P)
dst_release+0xe0/0x110 net/core/dst.c:177
skb_release_head_state+0xe8/0x108 net/core/skbuff.c:1177
sk_skb_reason_drop+0x54/0x2d8 net/core/skbuff.c:1255
dev_kfree_skb_any_reason+0x64/0x78 net/core/dev.c:3469
napi_consume_skb+0x1c4/0x3a0 net/core/skbuff.c:1527
__free_old_xmit+0x164/0x230 drivers/net/virtio_net.c:611 [virtio_net]
free_old_xmit drivers/net/virtio_net.c:1081 [virtio_net]
start_xmit+0x7c/0x530 drivers/net/virtio_net.c:3329 [virtio_net]
...

Reproduction Steps:
NETDEV="enp3s0"

config_qdisc_route_filter() {
tc qdisc del dev $NETDEV root
tc qdisc add dev $NETDEV root handle 1: prio
tc filter add dev $NETDEV parent 1:0 \
protocol ip prio 100 route to 100 flowid 1:1
ip route add 192.168.1.100/32 dev $NETDEV realm 100
}

test_ns() {
ip netns add testns
ip link set $NETDEV netns testns
ip netns exec testns ifconfig $NETDEV 10.0.32.46/24
ip netns exec testns ping -c 1 10.0.32.1
ip netns del testns
}

config_qdisc_route_filter

test_ns
sleep 2
test_ns

Fixes: f2fc6a54585a ("[NETNS][IPV6] route6 - move ip6_dst_ops inside the network namespace")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: xietangxin <xietangxin@yeah.net>
Reviewed-by: Xuan Zhuo <xuanzhuo@linux.alibaba.com>
Fixes: 0287587884b1 ("net: better IFF_XMIT_DST_RELEASE support")
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260312025406.15641-1-xietangxin@yeah.net
Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
---
drivers/net/virtio_net.c | 1 +
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)

--- a/drivers/net/virtio_net.c
+++ b/drivers/net/virtio_net.c
@@ -3355,6 +3355,7 @@ static netdev_tx_t start_xmit(struct sk_
/* Don't wait up for transmitted skbs to be freed. */
if (!use_napi) {
skb_orphan(skb);
+ skb_dst_drop(skb);
nf_reset_ct(skb);
}