Overview
About vulnerability
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
net/packet: fix TOCTOU race on mmap’d vnet_hdr in tpacket_snd()
In tpacket_snd(), when PACKET_VNET_HDR is enabled, vnet_hdr points directly into the mmap’d TX ring buffer shared with userspace. The kernel validates the header via __packet_snd_vnet_parse() but then re-reads all fields later in virtio_net_hdr_to_skb(). A concurrent userspace thread can modify the vnet_hdr fields between validation and use, bypassing all safety checks.
The non-TPACKET path (packet_snd()) already correctly copies vnet_hdr to a stack-local variable. All other vnet_hdr consumers in the kernel (tun.c, tap.c, virtio_net.c) also use stack copies. The TPACKET TX path is the only caller of virtio_net_hdr_to_skb() that reads directly from user-controlled shared memory.
Fix this by copying vnet_hdr from the mmap’d ring buffer to a stack-local variable before validation and use, consistent with the approach used in packet_snd() and all other callers.
Details
- Affected product:
- AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU , Amazon Linux 2 ELS , CentOS 8.4 ELS , CentOS 8.5 ELS , CentOS Stream 8 ELS , Debian 10 ELS , Oracle Linux 7 ELS , TuxCare 9.6 ESU , Ubuntu 16.04 ELS , Ubuntu 18.04 ELS , Ubuntu 20.04 ELS
- Affected packages:
- kernel @ 5.10.0 (+10 more)
Fixes
KernelCare state
Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.
| Operating system | Status | Covered kernels |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Linux 2023 | Released |
57 kernels
|
| Debian 11 | Released |
37 kernels
|
| Debian 11 cloud | Released |
17 kernels
|
| Debian 12 | Released |
40 kernels
|
| Debian 13 | Planned | — |
| Ubuntu 24.04 | Planned | — |