CVE-2026-43421

About vulnerability

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

usb: gadget: f_ncm: Fix net_device lifecycle with device_move

The network device outlived its parent gadget device during disconnection, resulting in dangling sysfs links and null pointer dereference problems.

A prior attempt to solve this by removing SET_NETDEV_DEV entirely [1] was reverted due to power management ordering concerns and a NO-CARRIER regression.

A subsequent attempt to defer net_device allocation to bind [2] broke 1:1 mapping between function instance and network device, making it impossible for configfs to report the resolved interface name. This results in a regression where the DHCP server fails on pmOS.

Use device_move to reparent the net_device between the gadget device and /sys/devices/virtual/ across bind/unbind cycles. This preserves the network interface across USB reconnection, allowing the DHCP server to retain their binding.

Introduce gether_attach_gadget()/gether_detach_gadget() helpers and use __free(detach_gadget) macro to undo attachment on bind failure. The bind_count ensures device_move executes only on the first bind.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/[email protected]/ [2] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-usb/[email protected]/

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-uek @ 5.4.17 (+11 more)

Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.