net: batman-adv: fix error handling

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: batman-adv: fix error handling Syzbot reported ODEBUG warning in batadv_nc_mesh_free(). The problem was in wrong error handling in batadv_mesh_init(). Before this patch batadv_mesh_init() was calling batadv_mesh_free() in case of any batadv_*_init() calls failure. This approach may work well, when there is some kind of indicator, which can tell which parts of batadv are initialized; but there isn't any. All written above lead to cleaning up uninitialized fields. Even if we hide ODEBUG warning by initializing bat_priv->nc.work, syzbot was able to hit GPF in batadv_nc_purge_paths(), because hash pointer in still NULL. [1] To fix these bugs we can unwind batadv_*_init() calls one by one. It is good approach for 2 reasons: 1) It fixes bugs on error handling path 2) It improves the performance, since we won't call unneeded batadv_*_free() functions. So, this patch makes all batadv_*_init() clean up all allocated memory before returning with an error to no call correspoing batadv_*_free() and open-codes batadv_mesh_free() with proper order to avoid touching uninitialized fields.

Timeline

1. May 22, 2024, 8:19 AM UTCCVE published
2. May 22, 2024, 2:23 PM UTCCISA SSVC assessment

   Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial

3. May 11, 2026, 1:55 PM UTCRecord last updated

Affected versions

• Linux Linux

  Version range not reported

• Linux Linux

  2.6.38

References 8