Bug 2541249 (CVE-2026-98011)

Summary: CVE-2026-98011 kernel: net/sched: hhf: clamp quantum in change and init paths
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: low Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: unspecifiedCC: akhatavk, aos-team-art-private, asdas, dpaolell, jdelft, jupierce, lgarciaa, mbiarnes, ppalepu, ppostler, prdhamdh, rhel-process-autobot, sghai, sidsharm, suppawar, vlaad, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Heavy-Hitter Filter (HHF) network scheduler. A local attacker with network administration privileges, which can be acquired within an unprivileged user namespace, can cause a Denial of Service (DoS). By setting an excessively small quantum value alongside a crafted packet size table, an attacker forces the scheduler into an extensive processing loop while holding a lock, resulting in a system soft lockup.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-09-25 11:10:14 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net/sched: hhf: clamp quantum in change and init paths

hhf_change() accepts any quantum from userspace, including 1. With a
crafted size table qdisc_pkt_len reaches ~2 GiB, so quantum=1 makes
the deficit-refill loop spin ~2^31 times under the qdisc lock
(a soft lockup / denial of service).

Add max(256U, ...) in hhf_change() matching fq_codel_change(). Clamp
hhf_init() to [256, 1<<20] matching the siblings, and remove the old
fallback that only set quantum=256 on overflow.

Conditions to recreate the bug:
  CONFIG_NET_SCH_HHF=y. Requires CAP_NET_ADMIN (namespace-local via
  unshare -Urn suffices).

  tc qdisc add dev dummy0 root hhf
  tc qdisc change dev dummy0 root hhf quantum 1 stab data 32768 size_log 15 cell_log 0