published September 4, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ipv4: reject undersized MTUs in ip_do_fragment()
ip_do_fragment() subtracts the IPv4 header length from the effective
MTU and passes the resulting payload MTU to ip_frag_next().
If the effective MTU is smaller than hlen + 8, ip_frag_next() rounds
the fragment payload length down to zero. The fragmentation state then
never makes forward progress: state->left, state->ptr and state->offset
stay unchanged while ip_do_fragment() keeps allocating and transmitting
header-only fragments until the softlockup detector fires.
This is reproducible with a route installed using "mtu lock 20", but it
is also reproducible without route MTU lock, for example by forwarding a
packet to a device whose MTU is 20.
Fix it in ip_do_fragment() by rejecting mtu < hlen + 8 with -EMSGSIZE,
matching the existing IPv6 fragmentation check.