Bug 2541255 (CVE-2026-98098)

Summary: CVE-2026-98098 kernel: tipc: fix NULL deref in tipc_named_node_up() on empty publication list
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: 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. A local user can trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) by binding an excessive number of service addresses to sockets in the Transparent Inter-Process Communication (TIPC) subsystem. When the internal name table reaches its capacity limit, required protocol service records fail to register, resulting in a NULL pointer dereference that crashes the system.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-09-25 11:11:22 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

tipc: fix NULL deref in tipc_named_node_up() on empty publication list

User-space applications can bind a large number of service addresses to
one or more sockets. Each binding of a local-scope service address inserts
one entry (publication) into the TIPC name table. If the number of these
publications exceeds TIPC_MAX_PUBL (65535), protocol service types
(such as node state and link state) are no longer inserted into the name
table. This causes two issues:

1. User-space applications subscribing to node or link up/down events
   stop receiving notifications.

2. A NULL pointer dereference can occur:

   BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 00000000000000d0
   ...
   CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 7.2.0-rc4-default+ #5 PREEMPT(full)
   ...
   RIP: 0010:tipc_named_node_up (./include/linux/skbuff.h:2251 net/tipc/name_distr.c:195 net/tipc/name_distr.c:221)
   ...
   Call Trace:
   <IRQ>
   tipc_node_write_unlock (net/tipc/node.c:428)
   tipc_rcv (net/tipc/node.c:934 net/tipc/node.c:2189)
   tipc_udp_recv (net/tipc/udp_media.c:389)

   Thread 1 (tipc_net_finalize) | Thread 2 (named_distribute)
   -----------------------------|-----------------------------
                                | ...
                                | list_for_each_entry(publ, pls, binding_node) {
                                | ...
                                | __skb_queue_tail(list, skb);
                                | ...
                                | }
                                | ...
                                | hdr = buf_msg(skb_peek_tail(list));
   ...                          |
   tipc_nametbl_publish();      |

   If 'tipc_nametbl_publish()' (Thread 1) fails because the number of
   local publications reaches TIPC_MAX_PUBL, list (Thread 2) will be empty. As a
   result, NULL is passed to 'buf_msg()', leading to a NULL pointer dereference.

Fix these issues by allowing protocol service types (node state, link state,
and topology server) to be inserted into the name table unconditionally.
This ensures that users subscribing to these types always receive
notifications. In addition, the maximum number of local user publications is
reduced to (TIPC_MAX_PUBL - 1). This ensures that the maximum bulk size
calculated in tipc_link_set_queue_limits() remains valid.