Bug 2461764 (CVE-2026-31680)

Summary: CVE-2026-31680 kernel: net: ipv6: flowlabel: defer exclusive option free until RCU teardown
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the Linux kernel. A local user can exploit a race condition in the IPv6 flow label handling, specifically during the teardown of exclusive flow label options. This can lead to a use-after-free vulnerability when a concurrent reader accesses freed option state, triggering a system crash and a Denial of Service (DoS).
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-04-25 09:01:59 UTC 
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net: ipv6: flowlabel: defer exclusive option free until RCU teardown

`ip6fl_seq_show()` walks the global flowlabel hash under the seq-file
RCU read-side lock and prints `fl->opt->opt_nflen` when an option block
is present.

Exclusive flowlabels currently free `fl->opt` as soon as `fl->users`
drops to zero in `fl_release()`. However, the surrounding
`struct ip6_flowlabel` remains visible in the global hash table until
later garbage collection removes it and `fl_free_rcu()` finally tears it
down.

A concurrent `/proc/net/ip6_flowlabel` reader can therefore race that
early `kfree()` and dereference freed option state, triggering a crash
in `ip6fl_seq_show()`.

Fix this by keeping `fl->opt` alive until `fl_free_rcu()`. That matches
the lifetime already required for the enclosing flowlabel while readers
can still reach it under RCU.
Comment 1 Alexander B 2026-04-27 10:59:26 UTC 
Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2026042544-CVE-2026-31680-7624@gregkh/T