net/sched: Abort __tc_modify_qdisc if parent class does not exist

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: Abort __tc_modify_qdisc if parent class does not exist Lion's patch [1] revealed an ancient bug in the qdisc API. Whenever a user creates/modifies a qdisc specifying as a parent another qdisc, the qdisc API will, during grafting, detect that the user is not trying to attach to a class and reject. However grafting is performed after qdisc_create (and thus the qdiscs' init callback) is executed. In qdiscs that eventually call qdisc_tree_reduce_backlog during init or change (such as fq, hhf, choke, etc), an issue arises. For example, executing the following commands: sudo tc qdisc add dev lo root handle a: htb default 2 sudo tc qdisc add dev lo parent a: handle beef fq Qdiscs such as fq, hhf, choke, etc unconditionally invoke qdisc_tree_reduce_backlog() in their control path init() or change() which then causes a failure to find the child class; however, that does not stop the unconditional invocation of the assumed child qdisc's qlen_notify with a null class. All these qdiscs make the assumption that class is non-null. The solution is ensure that qdisc_leaf() which looks up the parent class, and is invoked prior to qdisc_create(), should return failure on not finding the class. In this patch, we leverage qdisc_leaf to return ERR_PTRs whenever the parentid doesn't correspond to a class, so that we can detect it earlier on and abort before qdisc_create is called. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/d912cbd7-193b-4269-9857-525bee8bbb6a@gmail.com/

Timeline

1. Jul 25, 2025, 3:27 PM UTCCVE published
2. Oct 15, 2026, 1:07 AM UTCRecord last updated

Affected versions

• Linux Linux

  From 5e50da01d0ce7ef0ba3ed6cfabd62f327da0aca6 · fixed in 923a276c74e25073ae391e930792ac86a9f77f1e; From 5e50da01d0ce7ef0ba3ed6cfabd62f327da0aca6 · fixed in 90436e72c9622c2f70389070088325a3232d339f; From 5e50da01d0ce7ef0ba3ed6cfabd62f327da0aca6 · fixed in 25452638f133ac19d75af3f928327d8016952c8e; From 5e50da01d0ce7ef0ba3ed6cfabd62f327da0aca6 · fixed in 23c165dde88eac405eebb59051ea1fe139a45803; From 5e50da01d0ce7ef0ba3ed6cfabd62f327da0aca6 · fixed in 4c691d1b6b6dbd73f30ed9ee7da05f037b0c49af; From 5e50da01d0ce7ef0ba3ed6cfabd62f327da0aca6 · fixed in 8ecd651ef24ab50123692a4e3e25db93cb11602a; From 5e50da01d0ce7ef0ba3ed6cfabd62f327da0aca6 · fixed in e28a383d6485c3bb51dc5953552f76c4dea33eea; From 5e50da01d0ce7ef0ba3ed6cfabd62f327da0aca6 · fixed in ffdde7bf5a439aaa1955ebd581f5c64ab1533963

• Linux Linux

  2.6.20

• KernelLinux

  From 2.6.20 · fixed in 5.4.296; From 5.5.0 · fixed in 5.10.240; From 5.11.0 · fixed in 5.15.189; From 5.16.0 · fixed in 6.1.146; From 6.2.0 · fixed in 6.6.99; From 6.7.0 · fixed in 6.12.39; From 6.13.0 · fixed in 6.15.7

References 8