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CVE-2025-38457 net/sched: Abort __tc_modify_qdisc if parent class does not exist

Description

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/

Affected products and versions

Product Affected versions Fixed in
Linux 6.16 earliest → < 6.16 6.16
Linux 6.15 earliest → < 6.15.7 6.15.7
Linux 6.12 earliest → < 6.12.39 6.12.39
Linux 6.6 earliest → < 6.6.99 6.6.99
Linux 6.1 earliest → < 6.1.146 6.1.146
Linux 5.15 earliest → < 5.15.189 5.15.189
Linux 5.10 earliest → < 5.10.240 5.10.240
Linux 5.4 earliest → < 5.4.296 5.4.296
Linux 2.6.20 No fix stated
Show the 3 other branches
Product Affected versions Fixed in
SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP 3.1 3.1.5 → latest No fix stated
SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518F-4 PN/DP MFP 3.1 3.1.5 → latest No fix stated
SIPLUS S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP 3.1 3.1.5 → latest No fix stated
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