CVE-2026-23209

NameCVE-2026-23209
DescriptionIn the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: macvlan: fix error recovery in macvlan_common_newlink() valis provided a nice repro to crash the kernel: ip link add p1 type veth peer p2 ip link set address 00:00:00:00:00:20 dev p1 ip link set up dev p1 ip link set up dev p2 ip link add mv0 link p2 type macvlan mode source ip link add invalid% link p2 type macvlan mode source macaddr add 00:00:00:00:00:20 ping -c1 -I p1 1.2.3.4 He also gave a very detailed analysis: <quote valis> The issue is triggered when a new macvlan link is created with MACVLAN_MODE_SOURCE mode and MACVLAN_MACADDR_ADD (or MACVLAN_MACADDR_SET) parameter, lower device already has a macvlan port and register_netdevice() called from macvlan_common_newlink() fails (e.g. because of the invalid link name). In this case macvlan_hash_add_source is called from macvlan_change_sources() / macvlan_common_newlink(): This adds a reference to vlan to the port's vlan_source_hash using macvlan_source_entry. vlan is a pointer to the priv data of the link that is being created. When register_netdevice() fails, the error is returned from macvlan_newlink() to rtnl_newlink_create(): if (ops->newlink) err = ops->newlink(dev, &params, extack); else err = register_netdevice(dev); if (err < 0) { free_netdev(dev); goto out; } and free_netdev() is called, causing a kvfree() on the struct net_device that is still referenced in the source entry attached to the lower device's macvlan port. Now all packets sent on the macvlan port with a matching source mac address will trigger a use-after-free in macvlan_forward_source(). </quote valis> With all that, my fix is to make sure we call macvlan_flush_sources() regardless of @create value whenever "goto destroy_macvlan_port;" path is taken. Many thanks to valis for following up on this issue.
SourceCVE (at NVD; CERT, ENISA, LWN, oss-sec, fulldisc, Debian ELTS, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Gentoo, SUSE bugzilla/CVE, GitHub advisories/code/issues, web search, more)
ReferencesDLA-4498-1, DLA-4499-1, DSA-6141-1, DSA-6163-1

Vulnerable and fixed packages

The table below lists information on source packages.

Source PackageReleaseVersionStatus
linux (PTS)bullseye5.10.223-1vulnerable
bullseye (security)5.10.251-1fixed
bookworm6.1.159-1vulnerable
bookworm (security)6.1.164-1fixed
trixie6.12.73-1fixed
trixie (security)6.12.74-2fixed
forky, sid6.19.8-1fixed
linux-6.1 (PTS)bullseye (security)6.1.164-1~deb11u1fixed

The information below is based on the following data on fixed versions.

PackageTypeReleaseFixed VersionUrgencyOriginDebian Bugs
linuxsourcebullseye5.10.251-1DLA-4498-1
linuxsourcebookworm6.1.164-1DSA-6163-1
linuxsourcetrixie6.12.73-1DSA-6141-1
linuxsource(unstable)6.18.10-1
linux-6.1sourcebullseye6.1.164-1~deb11u1DLA-4499-1

Notes

https://git.kernel.org/linus/f8db6475a83649689c087a8f52486fcc53e627e9 (6.19)

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