CVE-2025-38472

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

netfilter: nf_conntrack: fix crash due to removal of uninitialised entry

A crash in conntrack was reported while trying to unlink the conntrack
entry from the hash bucket list:
[exception RIP: __nf_ct_delete_from_lists+172]
[..]
#7 [ff539b5a2b043aa0] nf_ct_delete at ffffffffc124d421 [nf_conntrack]
#8 [ff539b5a2b043ad0] nf_ct_gc_expired at ffffffffc124d999 [nf_conntrack]
#9 [ff539b5a2b043ae0] __nf_conntrack_find_get at ffffffffc124efbc [nf_conntrack]
[..]

The nf_conn struct is marked as allocated from slab but appears to be in
a partially initialised state:

ct hlist pointer is garbage; looks like the ct hash value
(hence crash).
ct->status is equal to IPS_CONFIRMED|IPS_DYING, which is expected
ct->timeout is 30000 (=30s), which is unexpected.

Everything else looks like normal udp conntrack entry. If we ignore
ct->status and pretend its 0, the entry matches those that are newly
allocated but not yet inserted into the hash:
– ct hlist pointers are overloaded and store/cache the raw tuple hash
– ct->timeout matches the relative time expected for a new udp flow
rather than the absolute ‘jiffies’ value.

If it were not for the presence of IPS_CONFIRMED,
__nf_conntrack_find_get() would have skipped the entry.

Theory is that we did hit following race:

cpu x cpu y cpu z
found entry E found entry E
E is expired
nf_ct_delete()
return E to rcu slab
init_conntrack
E is re-inited,
ct->status set to 0
reply tuplehash hnnode.pprev
stores hash value.

cpu y found E right before it was deleted on cpu x.
E is now re-inited on cpu z. cpu y was preempted before
checking for expiry and/or confirm bit.

->refcnt set to 1
E now owned by skb
->timeout set to 30000

If cpu y were to resume now, it would observe E as
expired but would skip E due to missing CONFIRMED bit.

nf_conntrack_confirm gets called
sets: ct->status |= CONFIRMED
This is wrong: E is not yet added
to hashtable.

cpu y resumes, it observes E as expired but CONFIRMED:

nf_ct_expired()
-> yes (ct->timeout is 30s)
confirmed bit set.

cpu y will try to delete E from the hashtable:
nf_ct_delete() -> set DYING bit
__nf_ct_delete_from_lists

Even this scenario doesn’t guarantee a crash:
cpu z still holds the table bucket lock(s) so y blocks:

wait for spinlock held by z

CONFIRMED is set but there is no
guarantee ct will be added to hash:
“chaintoolong” or “clash resolution”
logic both skip the insert step.
reply hnnode.pprev still stores the
hash value.

unlocks spinlock
return NF_DROP

In case CPU z does insert the entry into the hashtable, cpu y will unlink
E again right away but no crash occurs.

Without ‘cpu y’ race, ‘garbage’ hlist is of no consequence:
ct refcnt remains at 1, eventually skb will be free’d and E gets
destroyed via: nf_conntrack_put -> nf_conntrack_destroy -> nf_ct_destroy.

To resolve this, move the IPS_CONFIRMED assignment after the table
insertion but before the unlock.

Pablo points out that the confirm-bit-store could be reordered to happen
before hlist add resp. the timeout fixup, so switch to set_bit and
before_atomic memory barrier to prevent this.

It doesn’t matter if other CPUs can observe a newly inserted entry right
before the CONFIRMED bit was set:

Such event cannot be distinguished from above “E is the old incarnation”
case: the entry will be skipped.

Also change nf_ct_should_gc() to first check the confirmed bit.

The gc sequence is:
1. Check if entry has expired, if not skip to next entry
2. Obtain a reference to the expired entry.
3. Call nf_ct_should_gc() to double-check step 1.

nf_ct_should_gc() is thus called only for entries that already failed an
expiry check. After this patch, once the confirmed bit check pas
—truncated—