Bug 2559782 (CVE-2026-99074)

Summary: CVE-2026-99074 kernel: ipv4: stop PMTU walk when nexthop group shrinks
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 IPv4 networking subsystem. A race condition can occur when updating Path Maximum Transmission Unit (PMTU) routes while next-hop routing groups are simultaneously reduced in size. A local user with network administration privileges, or an unprivileged user where user namespaces are enabled, can trigger a NULL pointer dereference that crashes the system, resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS).
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-23 13:36:50 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ipv4: stop PMTU walk when nexthop group shrinks

Commit 7d3f3b4367f3 ("net: ipv4: Cache pmtu for all packet paths if
multipath enabled") made __ip_rt_update_pmtu() update every path.

For nexthop objects, fib_info_num_path() and fib_info_nhc()
independently load nh->nh_grp.  RCU protects each group's lifetime but
does not make the loads observe the same group.  If replacement shrinks
the group after the loop accepts an index, fib_info_nhc() returns NULL
and update_or_create_fnhe() dereferences it.

A deterministic probe only widened the existing window between the real
operations.  On v7.2, an RTM_NEWNEXTHOP replacement published a
one-member group after the PMTU reader accepted index 1 from a two-member
group, producing:

  KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000000007]
  RIP: update_or_create_fnhe+0x45/0x15b0

Stop when the indexed path is absent.  Groups are dense, so no later
index exists in that snapshot.  The same real-writer window completed
114,423 PMTU iterations without an oops with this check.  A reproducer
is available on request.

Replacement requires CAP_NET_ADMIN in the network namespace.  Where
unprivileged user namespaces are permitted, a local user can obtain it
in a new user and network namespace.