CVE-2026-64109

About vulnerability

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

af_unix: Fix UAF read of tail->len in unix_stream_data_wait()

unix_stream_data_wait() does skb_peek_tail(&sk->sk_receive_queue) without holding any lock that prevents SKBs on that queue from being dequeued and freed. This has been the case since commit 79f632c71bea (“unix/stream: fix peeking with an offset larger than data in queue”). The first consequence of this is that the pointer comparison tail != last can be false even if last semantically refers to an already-freed SKB while tail is a new SKB allocated at the same address; which can cause unix_stream_data_wait() to wrongly keep blocking after new data has arrived, but only in a weird scenario where a peeking recv() and a normal recv() on the same socket are racing, which is probably not a real problem.

But since commit 2b514574f7e8 (“net: af_unix: implement splice for stream af_unix sockets”), tail is actually dereferenced, which can cause UAF in the following race scenario (where test_setup() runs single-threaded, and afterwards, test_thread1() and test_thread2() run concurrently in two threads:

static int socks[2];
void test_setup(void) {
socketpair(AF_UNIX, SOCK_STREAM, 0, socks);
send(socks[1], "A", 1, 0);
int peekoff = 1;
setsockopt(socks[0], SOL_SOCKET, SO_PEEK_OFF, &peekoff, sizeof(peekoff));
}
void test_thread1(void) {
char dummy;
recv(socks[0], &dummy, 1, MSG_PEEK);
}
void test_thread2(void) {
char dummy;
recv(socks[0], &dummy, 1, 0);
shutdown(socks[1], SHUT_WR);
}

when racing like this:

thread1                       thread2
unix_stream_read_generic
mutex_lock(&u->iolock)
skb_peek(&sk->sk_receive_queue)
skb_peek_next(skb, &sk->sk_receive_queue)
mutex_unlock(&u->iolock)
unix_stream_read_generic
unix_state_lock(sk)
skb_peek(&sk->sk_receive_queue)
unix_state_unlock(sk)
unix_stream_data_wait
unix_state_lock(sk)
tail = skb_peek_tail(&sk->sk_receive_queue)
spin_lock(&sk->sk_receive_queue.lock)
__skb_unlink(skb, &sk->sk_receive_queue)
spin_unlock(&sk->sk_receive_queue.lock)
consume_skb(skb) [frees the SKB]
`tail != last`: false
`tail`: true
`tail->len != last_len` ***UAF***

Fix the UAF by removing the read of tail->len; checking tail->len would only make sense if SKBs in the receive queue of a UNIX socket could grow, which can no longer happen.

Kuniyuki explained:

> When commit 869e7c62486e (“net: af_unix: implement stream sendpage > support”) added sendpage() support, data could be appended to the last > skb in the receiver’s queue. > > That’s why we needed to check if the length of the last skb was changed > while waiting for new data in unix_stream_data_wait(). > > However, commit a0dbf5f818f9 (“af_unix: Support MSG_SPLICE_PAGES”) and > commit 57d44a354a43 (“unix: Convert unix_stream_sendpage() to use > MSG_SPLICE_PAGES”) refactored sendmsg(), and now data is always added > to a new skb.

That means this fix is not suitable for kernels before 6.5.

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 , Debian 10 ELS , Debian 11 ELS , Oracle Linux 7 ELS , RHEL 7 ELS , TuxCare 9.6 ESU , TuxCare 9.8 ESU , Ubuntu 16.04 ELS , Ubuntu 18.04 ELS , Ubuntu 20.04 ELS

Affected packages:

linux @ 5.4.0 (+15 more)

Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.