Bug 2502417 (CVE-2026-63981) - CVE-2026-63981 kernel: net/sched: act_mirred: Fix blockcast recursion bypass leading to stack overflow
Summary: CVE-2026-63981 kernel: net/sched: act_mirred: Fix blockcast recursion bypass ...
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-63981
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-07-19 16:07 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-07-21 23:29 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-07-19 16:07:02 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net/sched: act_mirred: Fix blockcast recursion bypass leading to stack overflow

tcf_mirred_act() checks sched_mirred_nest against MIRRED_NEST_LIMIT (4)
to prevent deep recursion.  However, when the action uses blockcast
(tcfm_blockid != 0), the function returns at the tcf_blockcast() call
BEFORE reaching the counter increment.  As a result, the recursion
counter never advances and the limit check is entirely bypassed.

When two devices share a TC egress block with a mirred blockcast rule,
a packet egressing on device A is mirrored to device B via blockcast;
device B's egress TC re-enters tcf_mirred_act() via blockcast and
mirrors back to A, creating an unbounded recursion loop:

  tcf_mirred_act -> tcf_blockcast -> tcf_mirred_to_dev -> dev_queue_xmit
  -> sch_handle_egress -> tcf_classify -> tcf_mirred_act -> (repeat)

This recursion continues until the kernel stack overflows.

The bug is reachable from an unprivileged user via
unshare(CLONE_NEWUSER | CLONE_NEWNET): user namespaces grant
CAP_NET_ADMIN in the new network namespace, which is sufficient to
create dummy devices, attach clsact qdiscs with shared blocks, and
install mirred blockcast filters.

 BUG: TASK stack guard page was hit at ffffc90000b7fff8
 Oops: stack guard page: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN NOPTI
 CPU: 2 UID: 1000 PID: 169 Comm: poc Not tainted 7.0.0-rc7-next-20260410
 RIP: 0010:xas_find+0x17/0x480
 Call Trace:
  xa_find+0x17b/0x1d0
  tcf_mirred_act+0x640/0x1060
  tcf_action_exec+0x400/0x530
  basic_classify+0x128/0x1d0
  tcf_classify+0xd83/0x1150
  tc_run+0x328/0x620
  __dev_queue_xmit+0x797/0x3100
  tcf_mirred_to_dev+0x7b1/0xf70
  tcf_mirred_act+0x68a/0x1060
  [repeating ~30+ times until stack overflow]
 Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt

Fix this by incrementing sched_mirred_nest before calling
tcf_blockcast() and decrementing it on return, mirroring the
non-blockcast path.  This ensures subsequent recursive entries see the
updated counter and are correctly limited by MIRRED_NEST_LIMIT.


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