published September 24, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
bpf: NUL-terminate replaced sysctl value
When writing to sysctls, proc_sys_call_handler() guarantees that the
buffer passed to proc handlers is NUL-terminated. If
bpf_sysctl_set_new_value() replaces the pending sysctl value, it can
hand a replacement buffer directly to proc handlers. However, the
helper currently copies only buf_len bytes into that buffer without
appending a NUL terminator, leaving downstream parsers vulnerable to
out-of-bounds access.
Fix this by appending a '\0' after the replaced value to restore the
expected sysctl semantics. Since the helper already rejects buf_len
greater than PAGE_SIZE - 1, there is always room for the extra byte.
Reproduced in a QEMU x86_64 guest booted with KASAN while exercising
the sysctl replacement path with a cgroup/sysctl BPF program. The
reproducer targets `/proc/sys/net/core/flow_limit_cpu_bitmap`, fills
the original user write buffer with non-zero bytes, and overrides the
sysctl value so the replacement buffer lacks a terminating NUL. Under
that setup, the pre-fix kernel reported:
BUG: KASAN: slab-out-of-bounds in strnchrnul+0x72/0x90
Read of size 1 at addr ffff88800de57000 by task repro_patch3/66
CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 66 Comm: repro_patch3 Not tainted 7.1.0-rc3-00269-g8370ca1f87cc #6 PREEMPT(lazy)
Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.15.0-1 04/01/2014
Call Trace:
<TASK>
dump_stack_lvl+0x68/0xa0
print_report+0xcb/0x5e0
? __virt_addr_valid+0x21d/0x3f0
? strnchrnul+0x72/0x90
? strnchrnul+0x72/0x90
kasan_report+0xca/0x100
? strnchrnul+0x72/0x90
strnchrnul+0x72/0x90
bitmap_parse+0x37/0x2e0
flow_limit_cpu_sysctl+0xc6/0x840
? __pfx_flow_limit_cpu_sysctl+0x10/0x10
? __kvmalloc_node_noprof+0x5ba/0x870
proc_sys_call_handler+0x31d/0x480
? __pfx_proc_sys_call_handler+0x10/0x10
? selinux_file_permission+0x39f/0x500
? lock_is_held_type+0x9e/0x120
vfs_write+0x98e/0x1000
...
</TASK>
The buggy address is located 0 bytes to the right of
allocated 4096-byte region [ffff88800de56000, ffff88800de57000)
With this fix applied, rerunning the same sysctl-targeted path yields
no corresponding KASAN reports.