published August 10, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
bpf, sockmap: Reject unhashed UDP sockets on sockmap update
UDP sockets get SOCK_RCU_FREE set when (auto-)bound. This means
sk_is_refcounted(unbound) = true, while sk_is_refcounted(bound) = false.
Because sockmap accepts unbound UDP sockets, a BPF program can increment a
socket's refcount via lookup. If the socket is subsequently bound, the
transition from unbound to bound causes bpf_sk_release() to skip the
decrement of the refcount, causing a memory leak.
unreferenced object 0xffff88810bc2eb40 (size 1984):
comm "test_progs", pid 2451, jiffies 4295320596
hex dump (first 32 bytes):
7f 00 00 01 7f 00 00 01 d2 04 1b b7 04 d2 00 00 ................
02 00 01 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ...@............
backtrace (crc bdee079d):
kmem_cache_alloc_noprof+0x557/0x660
sk_prot_alloc+0x69/0x240
sk_alloc+0x30/0x460
inet_create+0x2ce/0xf80
__sock_create+0x25b/0x5c0
__sys_socket+0x119/0x1d0
__x64_sys_socket+0x72/0xd0
do_syscall_64+0xa1/0x5f0
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e
Instead of special-casing for refcounted sockets, reject unhashed UDP
sockets during sockmap updates, as there is no benefit to supporting those.
This effectively reverts the commit under Fixes, with two exceptions:
1. sock_map_sk_state_allowed() maintains a fall-through `return true`.
2. In the spirit of commit b8b8315e39ff ("bpf, sockmap: Remove unhash
handler for BPF sockmap usage"), the proto::unhash BPF handler is not
reintroduced.
Historical note: this issue is related to commit 67312adc96b5 ("bpf: reject
unhashed sockets in bpf_sk_assign").