[PATCH net v1] net: mptcp: fix slab-use-after-free in __inet_lookup_established

From: Jiayuan Chen

Date: Fri Apr 03 2026 - 09:10:36 EST


The ehash table lookups are lockless and rely on
SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU to guarantee socket memory stability
during RCU read-side critical sections. Both tcp_prot and
tcpv6_prot have their slab caches created with this flag
via proto_register().

However, MPTCP's mptcp_subflow_init() copies tcpv6_prot into
tcpv6_prot_override during inet_init() (fs_initcall, level 5),
before inet6_init() (module_init/device_initcall, level 6) has
called proto_register(&tcpv6_prot). At that point,
tcpv6_prot.slab is still NULL, so tcpv6_prot_override.slab
remains NULL permanently.

This causes MPTCP v6 subflow child sockets to be allocated via
kmalloc (falling into kmalloc-4k) instead of the TCPv6 slab
cache. The kmalloc-4k cache lacks SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU, so
when these sockets are freed without SOCK_RCU_FREE (which is
cleared for child sockets by design), the memory can be
immediately reused. Concurrent ehash lookups under
rcu_read_lock can then access freed memory, triggering a
slab-use-after-free in __inet_lookup_established.

Fix this by splitting the IPv6-specific initialization out of
mptcp_subflow_init() into a new mptcp_subflow_v6_init(), which
is called from mptcpv6_init() after proto_register(&tcpv6_prot)
has completed. This ensures tcpv6_prot_override.slab correctly
inherits the SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU slab cache.

Fixes: b19bc2945b40 ("mptcp: implement delegated actions")
Signed-off-by: Jiayuan Chen <jiayuan.chen@xxxxxxxxx>
---
net/mptcp/ctrl.c | 6 +++++-
net/mptcp/protocol.h | 1 +
net/mptcp/subflow.c | 15 +++++++++------
3 files changed, 15 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

diff --git a/net/mptcp/ctrl.c b/net/mptcp/ctrl.c
index d96130e49942..5887ddcdb875 100644
--- a/net/mptcp/ctrl.c
+++ b/net/mptcp/ctrl.c
@@ -583,7 +583,11 @@ int __init mptcpv6_init(void)
int err;

err = mptcp_proto_v6_init();
+ if (err)
+ return err;

- return err;
+ mptcp_subflow_v6_init();
+
+ return 0;
}
#endif
diff --git a/net/mptcp/protocol.h b/net/mptcp/protocol.h
index 0bd1ee860316..ec15e503da8b 100644
--- a/net/mptcp/protocol.h
+++ b/net/mptcp/protocol.h
@@ -875,6 +875,7 @@ static inline void mptcp_subflow_tcp_fallback(struct sock *sk,
void __init mptcp_proto_init(void);
#if IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_MPTCP_IPV6)
int __init mptcp_proto_v6_init(void);
+void __init mptcp_subflow_v6_init(void);
#endif

struct sock *mptcp_sk_clone_init(const struct sock *sk,
diff --git a/net/mptcp/subflow.c b/net/mptcp/subflow.c
index 6716970693e9..4ff5863aa9fd 100644
--- a/net/mptcp/subflow.c
+++ b/net/mptcp/subflow.c
@@ -2165,7 +2165,15 @@ void __init mptcp_subflow_init(void)
tcp_prot_override.psock_update_sk_prot = NULL;
#endif

+ mptcp_diag_subflow_init(&subflow_ulp_ops);
+
+ if (tcp_register_ulp(&subflow_ulp_ops) != 0)
+ panic("MPTCP: failed to register subflows to ULP\n");
+}
+
#if IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_MPTCP_IPV6)
+void __init mptcp_subflow_v6_init(void)
+{
/* In struct mptcp_subflow_request_sock, we assume the TCP request sock
* structures for v4 and v6 have the same size. It should not changed in
* the future but better to make sure to be warned if it is no longer
@@ -2204,10 +2212,5 @@ void __init mptcp_subflow_init(void)
/* Disable sockmap processing for subflows */
tcpv6_prot_override.psock_update_sk_prot = NULL;
#endif
-#endif
-
- mptcp_diag_subflow_init(&subflow_ulp_ops);
-
- if (tcp_register_ulp(&subflow_ulp_ops) != 0)
- panic("MPTCP: failed to register subflows to ULP\n");
}
+#endif
--
2.43.0