[PATCH net v2 2/5] ipv4: fix shift-out-of-bounds in ip_rt_send_redirect()

From: Jiayuan Chen

Date: Tue Oct 27 2026 - 06:56:05 EST


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 grows until 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

Bounding redirect_number instead is not an option: 0 disables redirects
and -1 removes the cap. Compute the backoff in u64 with the shift count
capped at 31, which cannot overflow once ip_rt_redirect_load is
non-negative, and clamp the result to MAX_JIFFY_OFFSET: on 32-bit a
backoff of 2^31 or more is read by time_after() as already expired. This
keeps redirect_number as the limit on how many ICMP redirects are sent,
and the shift can no longer go out of bounds.

redirect_load on the other hand gets a lower bound of 0. A negative
backoff never meant anything, the old code only happened to treat it as
no backoff, and once converted to u64 it would turn into the maximum
backoff instead.

Fixes: 1da177e4c3f4 ("Linux-2.6.12-rc2")
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Signed-off-by: Jiayuan Chen <jiayuan.chen@xxxxxxxxx>
---
net/ipv4/route.c | 10 ++++++----
1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/net/ipv4/route.c b/net/ipv4/route.c
index 595a3b7f17830..f2c899f4cf8ca 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);
@@ -3573,7 +3574,8 @@ static struct ctl_table ipv4_route_table[] = {
.data = &ip_rt_redirect_load,
.maxlen = sizeof(int),
.mode = 0644,
- .proc_handler = proc_dointvec,
+ .proc_handler = proc_dointvec_minmax,
+ .extra1 = SYSCTL_ZERO,
},
{
.procname = "redirect_number",
--
2.43.0