Re: [PATCH net 1/1] net: gso: limit recursive IP-in-IP segmentation
From: Willem de Bruijn
Date: Sun Sep 13 2026 - 18:47:02 EST
Zihan Xi wrote:
> IPIP GSO/TSO support makes IP-in-IP GSO dispatch re-enter
> inet_gso_segment() or ipv6_gso_segment() for every nested IP header. The
> only state that tracks this nesting is encap_level, which records header
> bytes and has no recursion bound. A sufficiently deep chain can consume the
> kernel stack before a transport GSO callback is reached.
>
> The unbounded callback nesting was introduced when inet_gso_segment() was
> made stackable by "ipv4: gso: make inet_gso_segment() stackable". GRE GSO
> support predated that change, and IP-in-IP GSO/TSO support later made the
> affected path reachable.
>
> Track the number of IP GSO callbacks in skb_gso_cb and reject the 15th
> callback entry. Thus 14 callback entries are allowed to complete;
> GSO_RECURSION_LIMIT is the rejection threshold, not the number of
> successful callbacks. Initialize the counter for each top-level GSO
> operation and check it in both IPv4 and IPv6 handlers so mixed IP-in-IP
> nesting is bounded.
>
> Fixes: 3347c9602955 ("ipv4: gso: make inet_gso_segment() stackable")
> Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Reported-by: Vega <vega@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Assisted-by: LLM
> Co-developed-by: Luxing Yin <root@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Luxing Yin <root@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Zihan Xi <zihanx@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> include/net/gso.h | 9 +++++++++
> net/core/gso.c | 1 +
> net/ipv4/af_inet.c | 3 +++
> net/ipv6/ip6_offload.c | 3 +++
> 4 files changed, 16 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/include/net/gso.h b/include/net/gso.h
> index 29975440cad5..2665acbb9205 100644
> --- a/include/net/gso.h
> +++ b/include/net/gso.h
> @@ -19,10 +19,19 @@ struct skb_gso_cb {
> int encap_level;
> __wsum csum;
> __u16 csum_start;
> + /* Number of GSO callbacks this packet already went through. */
> + u8 recursion_counter;
> };
> #define SKB_GSO_CB_OFFSET 32
> #define SKB_GSO_CB(skb) ((struct skb_gso_cb *)((skb)->cb + SKB_GSO_CB_OFFSET))
>
> +#define GSO_RECURSION_LIMIT 15 /* First callback depth to reject. */
> +static inline int gso_recursion_inc_test(struct sk_buff *skb)
What is 15 based on? Is that where in your test stack overflow occurs?
A realistic practical limit would likely already be smaller.