netfilter: nf_tables: skip expired catchall elements on insert and delete

Overview

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

netfilter: nf_tables: skip expired catchall elements on insert and delete

nft_setelem_catchall_insert() looks up duplicates with nft_set_elem_active() only, while nft_set_catchall_lookup() and the dump path additionally skip expired elements.

Once a catchall element with a timeout expires, this predicate drift makes it invisible to userspace dumps, yet it still blocks re-insertion: with NLM_F_EXCL the request fails with -EEXIST, and without it the request reports success but silently inserts nothing. The stale entry only goes away when the (user-tunable) gc interval elapses, so the catchall rule may silently stop matching for an arbitrarily long time after its first expiration.

The delete path shows the same drift: nft_setelem_catchall_deactivate() picks the first active-next entry in the catchall list, so with an expired entry still pending GC it retires the stale entry instead of the fresh one, and it deactivates an element that userspace no longer sees instead of failing with -ENOENT.

Align both walks with the lookup and dump predicates: only an element that is active and not expired counts as a duplicate or delete candidate, using the per-netns timestamp taken at transaction start, in line with the set backend .insert/.deactivate and catchall GC sync paths.

Affected

• Linux >= aaa31047a6d25da0fa101da1ed544e1247949b40 < 5e20b39aa7844769a7a782484bc1a809ffbc513e
• Linux >= aaa31047a6d25da0fa101da1ed544e1247949b40 < 2f07da3881525f7cbfed1ced2796c71a201505b9
• Linux >= aaa31047a6d25da0fa101da1ed544e1247949b40 < 12cf803edfffef96f6415f0b5dbc7ec88842ea0f
• Linux >= aaa31047a6d25da0fa101da1ed544e1247949b40 < 4fb8b1ccc475651e480e509de126bb9ce7f3cff9
• Linux >= aaa31047a6d25da0fa101da1ed544e1247949b40 < 70194dc37670bd08e44b471389861cc01bd3a3c9
• Linux 5.13

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 9, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 · no fix planned: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 · updated 2026-10-20 · vex