[SRU][J/N/Q][PATCH 0/1] CVE-2026-23209

[Ian Whitfield]

[Impact]

macvlan: fix error recovery in macvlan_common_newlink()

valis provided a nice repro to crash the kernel:

ip link add p1 type veth peer p2
ip link set address 00:00:00:00:00:20 dev p1
ip link set up dev p1
ip link set up dev p2

ip link add mv0 link p2 type macvlan mode source
ip link add invalid% link p2 type macvlan mode source macaddr add 00:00:00:00:00:20

ping -c1 -I p1 1.2.3.4

He also gave a very detailed analysis:

<quote valis>

The issue is triggered when a new macvlan link is created  with
MACVLAN_MODE_SOURCE mode and MACVLAN_MACADDR_ADD (or
MACVLAN_MACADDR_SET) parameter, lower device already has a macvlan
port and register_netdevice() called from macvlan_common_newlink()
fails (e.g. because of the invalid link name).

In this case macvlan_hash_add_source is called from
macvlan_change_sources() / macvlan_common_newlink():

This adds a reference to vlan to the port's vlan_source_hash using
macvlan_source_entry.

vlan is a pointer to the priv data of the link that is being created.

When register_netdevice() fails, the error is returned from
macvlan_newlink() to rtnl_newlink_create():

        if (ops->newlink)
                err = ops->newlink(dev, &params, extack);
        else
                err = register_netdevice(dev);
        if (err < 0) {
                free_netdev(dev);
                goto out;
        }

and free_netdev() is called, causing a kvfree() on the struct
net_device that is still referenced in the source entry attached to
the lower device's macvlan port.

Now all packets sent on the macvlan port with a matching source mac
address will trigger a use-after-free in macvlan_forward_source().

</quote valis>

With all that, my fix is to make sure we call macvlan_flush_sources()
regardless of @create value whenever "goto destroy_macvlan_port;"
path is taken.

Many thanks to valis for following up on this issue.

[Backport]

The patch was applied cleanly.

[Fix]

Questing: Cherry-pick
Noble: Cherry-pick
Jammy: Cherry-pick
Focal: PR on Forgejo
Bionic: Sent to ESM ML
Xenial: not affected
Trusty: not affected

[Test Case]

Compile and boot tested.

[Where problems could occur]

This fix affects those who use MAC-VLAN to create virtual interfaces that map
packets to or from specific MAC addresses to a particular interface. An issue
with this fix would be visible to the user via a kernel crash or networking
issues with virtual interfaces (containers/VMs).

Eric Dumazet (1):
  macvlan: fix error recovery in macvlan_common_newlink()

 drivers/net/macvlan.c | 5 +++--
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

-- 
2.43.0