Overview
About vulnerability
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
sctp: don’t free the ASCONF’s own transport in DEL-IP processing
sctp_process_asconf() caches the transport the ASCONF chunk is processed against in asconf->transport (== chunk->transport, set once in sctp_rcv()). For an ASCONF located through its Address Parameter by __sctp_rcv_asconf_lookup(), that cached transport corresponds to the Address Parameter, which need not be the packet’s source address.
sctp_process_asconf_param() rejects a DEL-IP for the packet source address (ADDIP D8, SCTP_ERROR_DEL_SRC_IP), but nothing protects asconf->transport. A single ASCONF can therefore carry, in order:
[Address Parameter L] [DEL-IP L] [DEL-IP 0.0.0.0]
where L differs from the source. The DEL-IP for L passes the D8 check and calls sctp_assoc_rm_peer() on the transport that asconf->transport still points at, freeing it (RCU-deferred). The following wildcard DEL-IP then reuses the now-dangling asconf->transport in sctp_assoc_set_primary() and sctp_assoc_del_nonprimary_peers(): set_primary() dereferences the freed transport (->ipaddr, ->state) and plants the dangling pointer into asoc->peer.primary_path / active_path, and del_nonprimary_peers(), keeping only the pointer that is no longer on the list, removes every real transport, leaving the association with a transport_count of 0 and primary_path/active_path pointing at freed memory.
Reject a DEL-IP that targets the transport the ASCONF is being processed against, mirroring the existing source-address guard, so the wildcard branch can never reuse a freed transport.
Details
- Affected product:
- AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU , Amazon Linux 2 ELS , CentOS 6 ELS , CentOS 7 ELS , CentOS 8.4 ELS , CentOS 8.5 ELS , CentOS Stream 8 ELS , CloudLinux 7 ELS , Oracle Linux 6 ELS , Oracle Linux 7 ELS , RHEL 7 ELS , TuxCare 9.6 ESU , Ubuntu 16.04 ELS , Ubuntu 18.04 ELS , Ubuntu 20.04 ELS
- Affected packages:
- linux @ 4.15.0 (+16 more)
Fixes
KernelCare state
Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.
| Operating system | Status | Covered kernels |
|---|---|---|
| AlmaLinux 8 | In Rollout |
125 kernels
|
| AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU | Planned | — |
| AlmaLinux 9.6 ESU | Planned | — |
| CentOS 8 | In Rollout |
33 kernels
|
| Debian 13 | Released |
14 kernels
|
| RHEL 8 | In Rollout |
143 kernels
|
| Rocky Linux 8 | In Rollout |
104 kernels
|