IPv6 Neighbor Solicitation packet leak causes TX pool exhaustion denial of service

Overview

net_ipv6_send_ns() in subsys/net/ip/ipv6_nbr.c allocates a transmit net_pkt for a Neighbor Solicitation. When it is called with a data packet pending on an unresolved neighbor and that neighbor's pending_queue is already non-empty (an NS is already outstanding), the function appends the data packet and returns early without ever sending the NS via net_send_data() or releasing it with net_pkt_unref(). The freshly allocated NS net_pkt and its attached TX buffers are held only by a local variable and are leaked permanently, never returning to CONFIG_NET_PKT_TX_COUNT / CONFIG_NET_BUF_TX_COUNT.

The leaking branch sits on the normal IPv6 transmit path: net_ipv6_prepare_for_send() (called from net_if.c) invokes net_ipv6_send_ns() for any outbound or forwarded IPv6 packet whose next hop is not yet in the neighbor cache. An on-link (adjacent) attacker can drive it deterministically by sending a burst of request packets (for example ICMPv6 echo requests or UDP datagrams) that all spoof a single non-existent on-link source address: the node generates a reply to each, the first reply queues an NS, and every subsequent reply during the roughly three-second INCOMPLETE resolution window takes the leaking branch and loses one TX packet. Router-configured nodes forwarding attacker traffic toward a non-existent on-link host leak identically.

Because the leaked packets are never reclaimed and CONFIG_NET_PKT_TX_COUNT defaults to only 4 (14 for Ethernet), a brief low-rate burst exhausts the TX pool. Once exhausted the node can no longer allocate any transmit packet and cannot send TCP/UDP, ARP/ND, or any reply at all, producing a complete and persistent network denial of service that does not self-heal until reboot. The fix releases the unsent NS packet with net_pkt_unref(pkt) before the early return.

Affected

• zephyr >= 4.3.0 < 4.3.2
• zephyr >= 4.4.0 < 4.4.2

Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.