Bug 2562690 (CVE-2026-99127)

Summary: CVE-2026-99127 kernel: kernel: Denial of Service via misaligned memory fragment allocations in page_pool
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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Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's page pool memory allocator. This vulnerability allows an attacker to cause a Denial of Service (DoS) by triggering network traffic that requests odd-sized memory fragments. Because the allocator does not properly align fragment offsets for odd-sized requests on architectures without strict hardware alignment, subsequent network buffers allocated from the shared memory pool become misaligned. When the kernel performs atomic operations on these misaligned structures across CPU cache line boundaries, split lock detection triggers a kernel panic and crashes the system.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-28 10:50:00 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

page_pool: keep frag_offset aligned for odd-sized requests

page_pool_alloc_frag_netmem() rounds the requested fragment size with

	size = ALIGN(size, dma_get_cache_alignment());

dma_get_cache_alignment() returns 1 unless the architecture defines
ARCH_DMA_MINALIGN, which DMA-coherent architectures such as x86 do not.
There the ALIGN() is a no-op and pool->frag_offset advances by the raw,
unrounded size.

A single caller asking for an odd size then leaves frag_offset misaligned
for every fragment carved out of that page afterwards.  The pool is shared,
so the damage is not confined to the caller that caused it.

The per-cpu system_page_pool used by generic XDP hits this.
skb_pp_cow_data() allocates its fragments with the raw packet length:

	size = min_t(u32, len, PAGE_SIZE);
	truesize = size;
	page = page_pool_dev_alloc(pool, &page_off, &truesize);

leaving frag_offset odd for whatever is carved out of that page next.  Its
own head allocation is already aligned -- SKB_HEAD_ALIGN(size) plus the
XDP_PACKET_HEADROOM its callers pass -- so it is a later user of the shared
pool that pays: page_pool_dev_alloc_va() returns a misaligned buffer,
napi_build_skb() installs it as skb->head, and skb_shinfo(skb) ==
skb->head + skb->end is misaligned with it.

skb_shinfo()->dataref is a 4-byte atomic_t at offset 0x20, so the
atomic_inc() in __skb_clone() straddles a cache line.  On x86 with split
lock detection -- fatal for kernel split locks by default -- this panics
the machine:

  Oops: Split lock detected
  RIP: 0010:skb_clone+0x154/0x1e0
  Call Trace:
   <IRQ>
   raw_local_deliver+0x1ed/0x2c0
   ip_protocol_deliver_rcu+0x54/0x1c0
   ip_local_deliver_finish+0x85/0x100
   ip_local_deliver+0x67/0x100
   __netif_receive_skb_one_core+0x85/0xa0
   process_backlog+0x87/0x130

Reproduced by attaching any generic-mode XDP program to loopback and
opening a RAW IPPROTO_UDP socket, which makes raw_local_deliver() clone
every locally delivered UDP packet; ordinary DNS traffic then triggers it,
roughly once per 2500 clones.  Observed on 6.12.101 and 7.1.8.

Tracing page_pool_alloc_frag_netmem() over one such run shows the
amplification -- two odd-sized requests, nine misaligned offsets:

  requested size & 7:   0: 17035    5: 1    7: 1
  frag_offset & 7:      0: 17028    3: 1    4: 1    5: 1    6: 1    7: 5

and skb_pp_cow_data() returning heads that were aligned on entry:

  head 0xffff8f4c86aeac00 -> 0xffff8f4c53a9a9c4 (&7=4)
  head 0xffff8f4d6a8a42c0 -> 0xffff8f4c4f7b7a45 (&7=5)

Round the fragment size up to at least the alignment struct skb_shared_info
requires, so fragments are always suitably aligned for the objects callers
build on them.  Architectures needing a larger DMA alignment keep it.

This also makes the remainder computed in page_pool_alloc_netmem(),

	*size = max_size - *offset;

aligned, since max_size is a power of two -- which fixes the matching
misalignment of skb->end.

Verified with a controlled A/B under QEMU/KVM: same tree, same config,
same compiler, same rootfs and identical traffic, differing only by this
patch.  A SEC("xdp.frags") XDP_PASS program on lo plus UDP datagrams
larger than max_head_size drives skb_pp_cow_data()'s fragment loop, which
passes raw packet lengths to the pool.  Measured at the return of
skb_pp_cow_data():

                          unpatched   patched
  skb_pp_cow_data calls       40800     40800
  misaligned skb->head         1120         0
  dataref at line offset >60     80         0

The last row counts the accesses that actually fault:
skb_shinfo()->dataref sits at head+end+0x20 and is a 4-byte atomic, so
`lock incl` splits a 64-byte cache line only when that address lands at
offset 61..63.  All 80 occurrences were at offset 61; the panic reported
above was at offset 62.  Eliminating the misalignment removes every one
of them.

Same class of bug as commit 3bed3cc4156e ("net: Do not allocate page
fragments t
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