High · published August 5, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
xfrm6: clear dst.dev on error to avoid double netdev_put in xfrm6_fill_dst()
On the error path where in6_dev_get(dev) returns NULL, xfrm6_fill_dst()
releases the device reference with netdev_put() but leaves
xdst->u.dst.dev set. dst_destroy() later calls netdev_put(dst->dev)
again, so the same net_device reference is released twice, underflowing
its refcount (ref_tracker WARNING + "unregister_netdevice: waiting for
<dev> to become free").
Clear xdst->u.dst.dev after the netdev_put(), the same way the XFRM
device-offload paths xfrm_dev_state_add() and xfrm_dev_policy_add() in
net/xfrm/xfrm_device.c NULL ->dev when releasing the reference on error.
ref_tracker: reference already released.
ref_tracker: allocated in:
xfrm6_fill_dst (net/ipv6/xfrm6_policy.c:86)
...
udpv6_sendmsg (net/ipv6/udp.c:1696)
...
ref_tracker: freed in:
xfrm6_fill_dst (net/ipv6/xfrm6_policy.c:90)
...
WARNING: lib/ref_tracker.c:322 at ref_tracker_free+0x58b/0x780
dst_destroy (net/core/dst.c:115)
rcu_core
handle_softirqs
...