High · published December 8, 2025
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
xsk: avoid data corruption on cq descriptor number
Since commit 30f241fcf52a ("xsk: Fix immature cq descriptor
production"), the descriptor number is stored in skb control block and
xsk_cq_submit_addr_locked() relies on it to put the umem addrs onto
pool's completion queue.
skb control block shouldn't be used for this purpose as after transmit
xsk doesn't have control over it and other subsystems could use it. This
leads to the following kernel panic due to a NULL pointer dereference.
BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000
#PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode
#PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page
PGD 0 P4D 0
Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI
CPU: 2 UID: 1 PID: 927 Comm: p4xsk.bin Not tainted 6.16.12+deb14-cloud-amd64 #1 PREEMPT(lazy) Debian 6.16.12-1
Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.17.0-debian-1.17.0-1 04/01/2014
RIP: 0010:xsk_destruct_skb+0xd0/0x180
[...]
Call Trace:
<IRQ>
? napi_complete_done+0x7a/0x1a0
ip_rcv_core+0x1bb/0x340
ip_rcv+0x30/0x1f0
__netif_receive_skb_one_core+0x85/0xa0
process_backlog+0x87/0x130
__napi_poll+0x28/0x180
net_rx_action+0x339/0x420
handle_softirqs+0xdc/0x320
? handle_edge_irq+0x90/0x1e0
do_softirq.part.0+0x3b/0x60
</IRQ>
<TASK>
__local_bh_enable_ip+0x60/0x70
__dev_direct_xmit+0x14e/0x1f0
__xsk_generic_xmit+0x482/0xb70
? __remove_hrtimer+0x41/0xa0
? __xsk_generic_xmit+0x51/0xb70
? _raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore+0xe/0x40
xsk_sendmsg+0xda/0x1c0
__sys_sendto+0x1ee/0x200
__x64_sys_sendto+0x24/0x30
do_syscall_64+0x84/0x2f0
? __pfx_pollwake+0x10/0x10
? __rseq_handle_notify_resume+0xad/0x4c0
? restore_fpregs_from_fpstate+0x3c/0x90
? switch_fpu_return+0x5b/0xe0
? do_syscall_64+0x204/0x2f0
? do_syscall_64+0x204/0x2f0
? do_syscall_64+0x204/0x2f0
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e
</TASK>
[...]
Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt
Kernel Offset: 0x1c000000 from 0xffffffff81000000 (relocation range: 0xffffffff80000000-0xffffffffbfffffff)
Instead use the skb destructor_arg pointer along with pointer tagging.
As pointers are always aligned to 8B, use the bottom bit to indicate
whether this a single address or an allocated struct containing several
addresses.