CVE-2026-23209

HIGH

Linux Kernel - Use-After-Free in macvlan_common_newlink Error Recovery

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: macvlan: fix error recovery in macvlan_common_newlink() valis provided a nice repro to crash the kernel: ip link add p1 type veth peer p2 ip link set address 00:00:00:00:00:20 dev p1 ip link set up dev p1 ip link set up dev p2 ip link add mv0 link p2 type macvlan mode source ip link add invalid% link p2 type macvlan mode source macaddr add 00:00:00:00:00:20 ping -c1 -I p1 1.2.3.4 He also gave a very detailed analysis: <quote valis> The issue is triggered when a new macvlan link is created with MACVLAN_MODE_SOURCE mode and MACVLAN_MACADDR_ADD (or MACVLAN_MACADDR_SET) parameter, lower device already has a macvlan port and register_netdevice() called from macvlan_common_newlink() fails (e.g. because of the invalid link name). In this case macvlan_hash_add_source is called from macvlan_change_sources() / macvlan_common_newlink(): This adds a reference to vlan to the port's vlan_source_hash using macvlan_source_entry. vlan is a pointer to the priv data of the link that is being created. When register_netdevice() fails, the error is returned from macvlan_newlink() to rtnl_newlink_create(): if (ops->newlink) err = ops->newlink(dev, &params, extack); else err = register_netdevice(dev); if (err < 0) { free_netdev(dev); goto out; } and free_netdev() is called, causing a kvfree() on the struct net_device that is still referenced in the source entry attached to the lower device's macvlan port. Now all packets sent on the macvlan port with a matching source mac address will trigger a use-after-free in macvlan_forward_source(). </quote valis> With all that, my fix is to make sure we call macvlan_flush_sources() regardless of @create value whenever "goto destroy_macvlan_port;" path is taken. Many thanks to valis for following up on this issue.

Scores

CVSS v3 7.8
EPSS 0.0002
EPSS Percentile 4.8%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Details

CWE
CWE-416
Status published
Products (25)
linux/Kernel 4.9.0 - 5.10.250linux
linux/Kernel 5.11.0 - 5.15.200linux
linux/Kernel 5.16.0 - 6.1.163linux
linux/Kernel 6.13.0 - 6.18.10linux
linux/Kernel 6.2.0 - 6.6.124linux
linux/Kernel 6.7.0 - 6.12.70linux
Linux/Linux < 4.9
Linux/Linux 4.9
Linux/Linux 5.10.250 - 5.10.*
Linux/Linux 5.15.200 - 5.15.*
... and 15 more
Published Feb 14, 2026
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026