In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: cls_api: Don't replay RTM_GETCHAIN in tc_ctl_chain(). If a netlink socket sends RTM_GETCHAIN requests repeatedly without recv()ing the responses, tc_ctl_cha…

Overview

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

net/sched: cls_api: Don't replay RTM_GETCHAIN in tc_ctl_chain().

If a netlink socket sends RTM_GETCHAIN requests repeatedly without recv()ing the responses, tc_ctl_chain() hogs CPU and triggers Hung Task splat. [0]

As caught in the stack trace, netlink_attachskb() could confuse tc_ctl_chain() by returning -EAGAIN when the userspace netlink socket's receive buffer is full.

The replay: label exists since commit 32a4f5ecd738 ("net: sched: introduce chain object to uapi") but was not used initially.

Since commit 9f407f1768d3 ("net: sched: introduce chain templates"), the label is needed for RTM_NEWCHAIN because tcf_proto_lookup_ops() may release RTNL to call request_module().

However, the replay logic is unnecessary for RTM_GETCHAIN.

Let's apply the replay logic only for RTM_NEWCHAIN.

[0]: INFO: task repro:1018 is blocked on a mutex likely owned by task repro:1022. task:repro state:R running task stack:14096 pid:1022 tgid:1014 ppid:961 task_flags:0x400040 flags:0x00080000 Call Trace: <TASK> ? clockevents_program_event (kernel/time/clockevents.c:372) ? pskb_expand_head (net/core/skbuff.c:615) ? skb_release_data (net/core/skbuff.c:1122) ? netlink_attachskb (./include/linux/skbuff.h:1323 ./include/linux/skbuff.h:1332 net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1232) ? __netlink_lookup (./include/linux/rcupdate.h:882 ./include/linux/rhashtable.h:711 net/netlink/af_netlink.c:499) ? tc_chain_notify (net/sched/cls_api.c:3045) ? tc_chain_notify (./include/linux/skbuff.h:1384 net/sched/cls_api.c:3041) ? netlink_unicast (net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1335) ? rtnl_unicast (./include/net/netlink.h:1198 net/core/rtnetlink.c:985) ? tc_ctl_chain (net/sched/cls_api.c:3242) ? rtnetlink_rcv_msg (net/core/rtnetlink.c:7146) ? netlink_unicast (net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1354) ? __pfx_rtnetlink_rcv_msg (net/core/rtnetlink.c:7177) ? netlink_rcv_skb (net/netlink/af_netlink.c:2556) ? netlink_unicast (net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1319) ? netlink_sendmsg (net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1900) ? __sock_sendmsg (net/socket.c:800) ? __sys_sendto (net/socket.c:2281) ? __x64_sys_sendto (net/socket.c:2288 net/socket.c:2284 net/socket.c:2284) ? do_syscall_64 (arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:61 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:84) ? entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe (arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:121) </TASK>

Remediation

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

Vendor advisories

• Red Hat VEX · Low · affected: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 · no fix planned: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, … · updated 2026-10-17 · vex