[PATCH] netfilter: flowtable: flush delete work after final GC
From: Chengfeng Ye
Date: Mon Aug 24 2026 - 08:09:43 EST
nf_flow_table_offload_flush_cleanup() drains delete work before its final
garbage-collection pass. That pass can itself queue more delete work.
During teardown, one possible interleaving is:
teardown worker delete worker
first GC: work allocation fails
leave flow retryable
drain delete workqueue
final GC: allocation succeeds
queue FLOW_CLS_DESTROY work
destroy rhashtable
free flowtable
read flowtable->net
nf_flow_table_offload_flush_cleanup() flushes only the delete work that
was queued before the final GC. NF_FLOW_HW_DYING is set only after
successful work allocation, so a GFP_ATOMIC allocation failure during the
first GC leaves the entry eligible for retry. If that retry later succeeds
in the final GC, it queues new destroy work after the earlier flush, and
that work can retain a stale flowtable pointer past the free.
This was reproducible with failslab forcing the initial GFP_ATOMIC
allocation failure, and KASAN reported:
BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in flow_offload_work_handler+0xbe8/0xe30
Read of size 8 at addr ffff888109c9fd98 by task kworker/u16:3/397
Workqueue: nf_ft_offload_del flow_offload_work_handler
Call Trace:
print_report+0xd0/0x630
kasan_report+0xce/0x100
flow_offload_work_handler+0xbe8/0xe30
process_one_work+0x63a/0x1070
worker_thread+0x45b/0xd10
kthread+0x2c6/0x3b0
ret_from_fork+0x36e/0x5a0
Allocated by task 87:
nf_tables_newflowtable+0x5d0/0x22f0
nfnetlink_rcv_batch+0x1396/0x1d00
netlink_unicast+0x5f5/0x860
netlink_sendmsg+0x70a/0xba0
Freed by task 11:
kfree+0x131/0x3c0
nf_tables_trans_destroy_work+0xb26/0xeb0
process_one_work+0x63a/0x1070
worker_thread+0x45b/0xd10
Last potentially related work creation:
__queue_work+0x68e/0x1030
flow_offload_del+0x74c/0xad0
nf_flow_offload_gc_step+0x264/0x8e0
nf_flow_table_gc_run+0xcd/0x150
nf_flow_table_offload_flush_cleanup+0x5c/0x70
nf_flow_table_free+0x280/0x350
nf_tables_flowtable_destroy+0x71/0x270
Flush the delete workqueue again after the final GC. This keeps every
successfully queued destroy operation within the flowtable lifetime.
Fixes: c921ffe85333 ("netfilter: flowtable: Fix flushing of offloaded flows on free")
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Signed-off-by: Chengfeng Ye <nicoyip.dev@xxxxxxxxx>
---
net/netfilter/nf_flow_table_offload.c | 1 +
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
diff --git a/net/netfilter/nf_flow_table_offload.c b/net/netfilter/nf_flow_table_offload.c
index 801a3dd9ceea..0fd09554b9ce 100644
--- a/net/netfilter/nf_flow_table_offload.c
+++ b/net/netfilter/nf_flow_table_offload.c
@@ -1167,6 +1167,7 @@ void nf_flow_table_offload_flush_cleanup(struct nf_flowtable *flowtable)
if (nf_flowtable_hw_offload(flowtable)) {
flush_workqueue(nf_flow_offload_del_wq);
nf_flow_table_gc_run(flowtable);
+ flush_workqueue(nf_flow_offload_del_wq);
}
}
--
2.43.0