Overview
About vulnerability
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
net: hns3: fix double free issue for tx spare buffer
In hns3_set_ringparam(), a temporary copy (tmp_rings) of the ring structure is created for rollback. However, the tx_spare pointer in the original ring handle is incorrectly left pointing to the old backup memory.
Later, if memory allocation fails in hns3_init_all_ring() during the setup, the error path attempts to free all newly allocated rings. Since tx_spare contains a stale (non-NULL) pointer from the backup, it is mistaken for a newly allocated buffer and is erroneously freed, leading to a double-free of the backup memory.
The root cause is that the tx_spare field was not cleared after its value was saved in tmp_rings, leaving a dangling pointer.
Fix this by setting tx_spare to NULL in the original ring structure
when the creation of the new tx_spare fails. This ensures the
error cleanup path only frees genuinely newly allocated buffers.
Details
- Affected product:
- AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU , TuxCare 9.6 ESU , Ubuntu 20.04 ELS
- Affected packages:
- kernel @ 5.14.0 (+2 more)
KernelCare state
Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.
| Operating system | Status | Covered kernels |
|---|---|---|
| Debian 13 | Planned | — |
| Ubuntu 22.04 | Planned | — |
| Ubuntu 24.04 | Planned | — |
| Ubuntu 24.04 AWS | Planned | — |