Re: [PATCH net] net: qede: initialize extack in qede_flow_spec_to_rule()
From: Asbjørn Sloth Tønnesen
Date: Tue Oct 13 2026 - 10:00:35 EST
On 10/13/26 10:54 AM, Anirudh Virdi wrote:
qede_flow_spec_to_rule() declares a netlink_ext_ack on the stack
without initializing it. qede_parse_flow_attr() and
qede_flow_spec_validate() only set extack._msg on error paths via
NL_SET_ERR_MSG_MOD(), so on a successful parse the err_out block
reads an uninitialized pointer. If that garbage happens to be
non-NULL, DP_NOTICE("%s", extack._msg) dereferences it inside
vsnprintf, causing a page fault and kernel panic.
This manifests when configuring ethtool ntuple flow rules (ethtool -U
flow-type tcp4/udp4) on kernels built with CONFIG_INIT_STACK_NONE=y.
With CONFIG_INIT_STACK_ALL_ZERO=y the bug is masked because the
compiler zero-initializes extack, making _msg NULL.
Reproduced on RHEL 9.8 (kernel-5.14.0-687.47.1.el9_8) and mainline
(v7.3-rc6) with the following reproducer:
IFACE=ens2f0
ip link set $IFACE up
ethtool -K $IFACE ntuple on
for i in $(seq 1 100); do
ethtool -U $IFACE flow-type udp4 src-ip 192.168.2.$i action -1
done
The loop panics reliably after 10-15 iterations with:
BUG: unable to handle page fault
RIP: string+0x49/0xd0
Call Trace:
vsnprintf
qede_flow_spec_to_rule+0x2b6/0x4b0 [qede]
qede_add_cls_rule
ethtool_set_rxnfc
Zero-initialize extack so _msg is NULL unless explicitly set by an
error path.
Fixes: eb705d734525 ("net: qede: use faked extack in qede_flow_spec_to_rule()")
Signed-off-by: Anirudh Virdi <avirdi@xxxxxxxxxx>
LGTM, thanks.
Reviewed-by: Asbjørn Sloth Tønnesen <ast@xxxxxxxxxxx>
CC Vadim and Ido:
As stated in the blamed commit message, my implementation was based on
mlxsw_env_linecard_modules_power_mode_apply() by commit 06a0fc43bb10
("mlxsw: core_env: Add interfaces for line card initialization and
de-initialization"), so likely that also needs to be fixed. I don't
have the hardware to prove/test that it can be triggered.