About vulnerability

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

nexthop: fix IPv6 route referencing IPv4 nexthop

syzbot reported a panic [1] [2].

When an IPv6 nexthop is replaced with an IPv4 nexthop, the has_v4 flag of all groups containing this nexthop is not updated. This is because nh_group_v4_update is only called when replacing AF_INET to AF_INET6, but the reverse direction (AF_INET6 to AF_INET) is missed.

This allows a stale has_v4=false to bypass fib6_check_nexthop, causing IPv6 routes to be attached to groups that effectively contain only AF_INET members. Subsequent route lookups then call nexthop_fib6_nh() which returns NULL for the AF_INET member, leading to a NULL pointer dereference.

Fix by calling nh_group_v4_update whenever the family changes, not just AF_INET to AF_INET6.

Reproducer:

AF_INET6 blackhole

ip -6 nexthop add id 1 blackhole

group with has_v4=false

ip nexthop add id 100 group 1

replace with AF_INET (no -6), has_v4 stays false

ip nexthop replace id 1 blackhole

pass stale has_v4 check

ip -6 route add 2001:db8::/64 nhid 100

panic

ping -6 2001:db8::1

[1] https://syzkaller.appspot.com/bug?id=e17283eb2f8dcf3dd9b47fe6f67a95f71faadad0 [2] https://syzkaller.appspot.com/bug?id=8699b6ae54c9f35837d925686208402949e12ef3

Affected product:

AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU , Amazon Linux 2 ELS , Oracle Linux 7 ELS , TuxCare 9.6 ESU , Ubuntu 20.04 ELS

Affected packages:

kernel @ 5.14.0 (+5 more)

Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.