Bug 2516898 (CVE-2026-72502) - CVE-2026-72502 kernel: tcp: ipv6: clamp default adverting MSS to avoid GSO_BY_FRAGS (0xFFFF)
Summary: CVE-2026-72502 kernel: tcp: ipv6: clamp default adverting MSS to avoid GSO_BY...
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-72502
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security DevOps Team
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-08-15 06:39 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-08-19 18:57 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-15 06:39:15 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

tcp: ipv6: clamp default adverting MSS to avoid GSO_BY_FRAGS (0xFFFF)

When MTU is large, ip6_default_advmss() can return IPV6_MAXPLEN (65535).
This is interpreted by TCP as mss_clamp, allowing the MSS to reach 65535.

However, 0xFFFF is also used as a magic value GSO_BY_FRAGS in the kernel.
If a TCP packet with gso_size=0xFFFF is passed to skb_segment(), it will
be mistakenly treated as GSO_BY_FRAGS, leading to a NULL pointer
dereference because local TCP packets do not use frag_list.

Fix this by returning min(IPV6_MAXPLEN, GSO_BY_FRAGS - 1) (65534) from
ip6_default_advmss() when MTU is large.

Also update the stale comment in ip6_default_advmss() which suggested
that IPV6_MAXPLEN is returned to mean "any MSS".


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