Bug 2554995 (CVE-2026-98562)

Summary: CVE-2026-98562 kernel: net: libwx: fix races in Tx timestamp handling
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's Wangxun network driver library (libwx). This vulnerability allows a local user to cause a Denial of Service (DoS) through memory corruption. A race condition in the Precision Time Protocol (PTP) transmit timestamp handling fails to properly synchronize packet transmission and cleanup routines. By transmitting network packets configured for hardware timestamping, an attacker can trigger this race condition, causing the system to access already freed memory and crash.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-18 15:38:04 UTC 
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net: libwx: fix races in Tx timestamp handling

wx->ptp_tx_skb is shared between the Tx path, the PTP auxiliary
worker and the timestamp cleanup paths. The
WX_STATE_PTP_TX_IN_PROGRESS bit prevents multiple Tx paths from
submitting timestamp requests, but does not serialize the worker
against cleanup.

As a result, wx_ptp_clear_tx_timestamp() can free an skb after
wx_ptp_tx_hwtstamp_work() has obtained its pointer. The worker may
then pass the freed skb to skb_tstamp_tx() and release the same
reference again.

The cleanup path may also clear the in-progress bit while the worker
is still processing the old skb. This allows the Tx path to publish a
new skb which the worker can subsequently overwrite with NULL,
leaking its reference.

Add a dedicated spinlock to protect publication and consumption of
the Tx timestamp skb. Detach the skb and clear the in-progress bit
while holding the lock, then deliver the timestamp and release the skb
after dropping it. Use the same locked cleanup in the quiesce path,
but keep the detach there free of register accesses: quiesce runs
during PCIe error recovery, where MMIO is not reliable, and it
deliberately did not touch the device before. The lock is taken with
interrupts disabled, because netpoll can call ndo_start_xmit() with
hard interrupts already off.

When handling a Tx DMA mapping failure, keep the transmit path
reference until after comparing the skb under the lock. This prevents
skb address reuse from making the error path mistake a newer timestamp
request for the failed one.