Re: [PATCH net 2/5] ipv4: fix shift-out-of-bounds in ip_rt_send_redirect()

From: Fernando Fernandez Mancera

Date: Fri Oct 23 2026 - 10:18:27 EST


On 10/23/26 11:13 AM, Jiayuan Chen wrote:
ip_rt_redirect_number is the max number of ICMP Redirects we send to one
endpoint; once we hit it we stop. Before that, ip_rt_redirect_load gives
the redirects an exponential backoff:

if (peer->n_redirects == 0 ||
time_after(jiffies,
(peer->rate_last +
(ip_rt_redirect_load << peer->n_redirects)))) {

n_redirects only stops growing when it reaches ip_rt_redirect_number, and
both redirect_number and redirect_load are plain proc_dointvec sysctls
with no upper bound. Set redirect_number past 32 and n_redirects climbs
past 31, so "ip_rt_redirect_load << peer->n_redirects" shifts a 32-bit
int by >= 32 bits, which is UB:

UBSAN: shift-out-of-bounds in net/ipv4/route.c:949:6
shift exponent 32 is too large for 32-bit type 'int'
CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 1845 Comm: ping Not tainted 7.3.0-rc7+ #364 PREEMPT
Call Trace:
<IRQ>
dump_stack_lvl+0xc1/0xf0
dump_stack+0x10/0x20
__ubsan_handle_shift_out_of_bounds+0x1d1/0x390
ip_rt_send_redirect.cold+0x2c/0x146
ip_forward+0x1ddc/0x2430
ip_rcv+0x2b1/0x320
__netif_receive_skb_one_core+0x16b/0x1c0
__netif_receive_skb+0x21/0x150
process_backlog+0x37e/0x1200
__napi_poll.constprop.0+0xa5/0x5e0
net_rx_action+0x4c0/0xf70

Fixing this from the sysctl side would mean bounding both knobs, e.g.
redirect_load to [0, 65535] and redirect_number to [0, 16], which gets
in the way of users who legitimately do not want to cap ICMP redirects.
Instead compute the backoff in u64 with the shift count capped at 31,
which cannot overflow since ip_rt_redirect_load is an int, and clamp the
result to MAX_JIFFY_OFFSET.


I think we should cap redirect_load with a minimum valid value of 0 on the sysctl. If the user want to disable ICMP redirects or do not cap them, they should use 0 or -1 in redirect_number IMHO.

What do you think?

The clamp also fixes 32-bit kernels, where the same expression goes
wrong long before the shift count reaches 32. With the default
ip_rt_redirect_load of 20, from n_redirects == 27 on the result is
either truncated or too large for time_after(), which then treats the
deadline as already passed, and from 30 on it is 0, so every forwarded
packet gets a redirect again until ip_rt_redirect_number is reached.
This needs a raised redirect_silence to be reachable, otherwise
n_redirects is reset long before. On 64-bit, ip_rt_redirect_load << 31
stays below MAX_JIFFY_OFFSET, so nothing changes there.


Isn't the same issue in 64-bit kernels too? In essence, it would be (int << u32) which results in a negative value and that is later sign-extended to a corrupted 64-bit value. Am I missing something here?

Fixes: 1da177e4c3f4 ("Linux-2.6.12-rc2")
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Signed-off-by: Jiayuan Chen <jiayuan.chen@xxxxxxxxx>
---
net/ipv4/route.c | 7 ++++---
1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/net/ipv4/route.c b/net/ipv4/route.c
index 595a3b7f1783..76807b757046 100644
--- a/net/ipv4/route.c
+++ b/net/ipv4/route.c
@@ -907,6 +907,7 @@ void ip_rt_send_redirect(struct sk_buff *skb)
struct inet_peer *peer;
int log_martians;
struct net *net;
+ u64 backoff;
int vif;
rcu_read_lock();
@@ -945,10 +946,10 @@ void ip_rt_send_redirect(struct sk_buff *skb)
/* Check for load limit; set rate_last to the latest sent
* redirect.
*/
+ backoff = (u64)ip_rt_redirect_load << min(peer->n_redirects, 31U);
+ backoff = min_t(u64, backoff, MAX_JIFFY_OFFSET);
if (peer->n_redirects == 0 ||
- time_after(jiffies,
- (peer->rate_last +
- (ip_rt_redirect_load << peer->n_redirects)))) {
+ time_after(jiffies, peer->rate_last + (unsigned long)backoff)) {
__be32 gw = rt_nexthop(rt, ip_hdr(skb)->daddr);
icmp_send(skb, ICMP_REDIRECT, ICMP_REDIR_HOST, gw);