Bug 2555213 (CVE-2026-98850)

Summary: CVE-2026-98850 kernel: net/packet: prevent TX_RING byte count overflow
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   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: ---
Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's packet socket implementation. An integer overflow occurs in the transmission ring buffer when calculating the total byte count of transmitted frames during a send operation. A local user with raw network privileges can exploit this issue to trigger an internal kernel error, leading to a system crash and resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS).
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-18 16:02:17 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net/packet: prevent TX_RING byte count overflow

tpacket_snd() drains every SEND_REQUEST frame in a TX ring and adds
each valid packet length to the signed int len_sum. Userspace can
recycle completed frames concurrently, so a single blocking send call
is not bounded by the ring size.

After enough successful transmissions len_sum wraps into the negative
range. In particular, 65536 65535-byte frames followed by a 65007-byte
frame produce 0xfffffdef, or -EIOCBQUEUED. sock_sendmsg_nosec() treats
that as an impossible return and triggers a BUG. On systems configured
to panic on oops, a CAP_NET_RAW holder can panic the host kernel.

Stop before the next frame would make the byte count exceed INT_MAX.
The positive short count leaves that frame pending for a later send
call.

A two-thread TPACKET_V2 reproducer triggered the BUG on an arm64 build
of Linux 7.3-rc4. With this change, the same reproducer returned the
expected positive short count without an oops.