Bug 2541262 (CVE-2026-97953)

Summary: CVE-2026-97953 kernel: net: stmmac: fix TX descriptor availability check for TSO traffic
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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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: ---
Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's stmmac network driver. An attacker can cause a Denial of Service (DoS) by transmitting highly fragmented network packets that use TCP Segmentation Offload (TSO). Due to an improper calculation of required transmit descriptors, the driver writes past available slots and corrupts memory in the transmit ring buffer, leading to driver malfunction or a system crash.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-09-25 11:12:22 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net: stmmac: fix TX descriptor availability check for TSO traffic

stmmac_tso_xmit() estimates the number of free TX descriptors required by
a TSO skb as:

	(skb->len - proto_hdr_len) / TSO_MAX_BUFF_SIZE + 1

which assumes the payload is split into TSO_MAX_BUFF_SIZE chunks. This
underestimates the descriptors actually consumed by stmmac_tso_allocator(),
since each fragment is mapped individually and so it needs at least one
descriptor regardless of its size. Moreover, one descriptor is used for
the L2/L3/L4 headers and, when the MSS changes, one more is consumed for
the MSS context descriptor.
For a highly fragmented TSO skb the check can therefore pass even when the
ring has too few free slots. stmmac_tso_allocator() then writes past the
available descriptors, overwriting descriptors still owned by the DMA
engine, corrupting the TX ring.
Add stmmac_tso_get_num_desc() to compute the exact number of descriptors
needed for the header, the linear payload and each fragment, plus the MSS
context descriptor when required, and use it in the availability check.