Critical · published August 15, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
vhost/net: complete zerocopy ubufs only once
vhost-net initializes one ubuf_info per outstanding zerocopy TX
descriptor and hands it to the backend socket. The networking stack may
then clone a zerocopy skb before all skb references are released. For
example, batman-adv fragmentation reaches skb_split(), which calls
skb_zerocopy_clone() and increments the same ubuf_info refcount.
vhost_zerocopy_complete() currently treats every ubuf callback as a
completed vhost descriptor. It dereferences ubuf->ctx, writes the
descriptor completion state, and drops the vhost_net_ubuf_ref even when
the callback only releases a cloned skb reference. A backend reset can
therefore wait for and free the vhost_net_ubuf_ref while another cloned
skb still carries the same ubuf_info. A later completion then
dereferences the freed ubufs pointer.
KASAN reports the stale completion as:
BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in vhost_zerocopy_complete+0x1d7/0x1f0
BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in vhost_zerocopy_complete+0x101/0x1f0
vhost_zerocopy_complete
skb_copy_ubufs
__dev_forward_skb2
veth_xmit
The freed object was allocated from vhost_net_ioctl() while setting the
backend and freed through kfree_rcu()/kvfree_rcu_bulk after backend
removal, while delayed skb completion still reached
vhost_zerocopy_complete().
Honor the generic ubuf_info refcount before touching vhost state, and run
the vhost descriptor completion only for the final ubuf reference. This
matches the msg_zerocopy_complete() ownership rule for cloned zerocopy
skbs.