Re: [PATCH] net: core: Initialize new header to zero in pskb_expand_head

From: Jakub Kicinski

Date: Thu Nov 06 2025 - 19:57:34 EST


On Fri, 7 Nov 2025 00:54:23 +0530 Prithvi Tambewagh wrote:
> KMSAN reports uninitialized value in can_receive(). The crash trace shows
> the uninitialized value was created in pskb_expand_head(). This function
> expands header of a socket buffer using kmalloc_reserve() which doesn't
> zero-initialize the memory. When old packet data is copied to the new
> buffer at an offset of data+nhead, new header area (first nhead bytes of
> the new buffer) are left uninitialized. This is fixed by using memset()
> to zero-initialize this header of the new buffer.

It's caller's responsibility to initialize the skb data, please leave
the core alone..

> diff --git a/net/core/skbuff.c b/net/core/skbuff.c
> index 6841e61a6bd0..3486271260ac 100644
> --- a/net/core/skbuff.c
> +++ b/net/core/skbuff.c
> @@ -2282,6 +2282,8 @@ int pskb_expand_head(struct sk_buff *skb, int nhead, int ntail,
> */
> memcpy(data + nhead, skb->head, skb_tail_pointer(skb) - skb->head);
>
> + memset(data, 0, size);

We just copied the data in there, and now you're zeroing it.

> memcpy((struct skb_shared_info *)(data + size),
--
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