Overview
About vulnerability
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
netfilter: x_tables: restrict xt_check_match/xt_check_target extensions for NFPROTO_ARP
Weiming Shi says:
xt_match and xt_target structs registered with NFPROTO_UNSPEC can be loaded by any protocol family through nft_compat. When such a match/target sets .hooks to restrict which hooks it may run on, the bitmask uses NF_INET_* constants. This is only correct for families whose hook layout matches NF_INET_*: IPv4, IPv6, INET, and bridge all share the same five hooks (PRE_ROUTING … POST_ROUTING).
ARP only has three hooks (IN=0, OUT=1, FORWARD=2) with different semantics. Because NF_ARP_OUT == 1 == NF_INET_LOCAL_IN, the .hooks validation silently passes for the wrong reasons, allowing matches to run on ARP chains where the hook assumptions (e.g. state->in being set on input hooks) do not hold. This leads to NULL pointer dereferences; xt_devgroup is one concrete example:
Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000044: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN NOPTI KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000220-0x0000000000000227] RIP: 0010:devgroup_mt+0xff/0x350 Call Trace: <TASK> nft_match_eval (net/netfilter/nft_compat.c:407) nft_do_chain (net/netfilter/nf_tables_core.c:285) nft_do_chain_arp (net/netfilter/nft_chain_filter.c:61) nf_hook_slow (net/netfilter/core.c:623) arp_xmit (net/ipv4/arp.c:666) </TASK> Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt
Fix it by restricting arptables to NFPROTO_ARP extensions only. Note that arptables-legacy only supports:
- arpt_CLASSIFY
- arpt_mangle
- arpt_MARK
that provide explicit NFPROTO_ARP match/target declarations.
Details
- Affected product:
- AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU , Amazon Linux 2 ELS , CentOS 7 ELS , CentOS 8.4 ELS , CentOS 8.5 ELS , CentOS Stream 8 ELS , CloudLinux 7 ELS , Debian 10 ELS , Oracle Linux 7 ELS , RHEL 7 ELS , TuxCare 9.6 ESU , Ubuntu 16.04 ELS , Ubuntu 18.04 ELS , Ubuntu 20.04 ELS
- Affected packages:
- kernel @ 5.14.0 (+16 more)
Fixes
KernelCare state
Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.
| Operating system | Status | Covered kernels |
|---|---|---|
| AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU | Released |
27 kernels
|
| AlmaLinux 9.6 ESU | Released |
9 kernels
|
| Amazon Linux 2023 | Planned | — |
| Debian 11 | Released |
37 kernels
|
| Debian 11 cloud | Released |
17 kernels
|
| Debian 12 | In Rollout |
35 kernels
|
| Debian 13 | Planned | — |
| Ubuntu 22.04 | Planned | — |
| Ubuntu 24.04 | Planned | — |