Re: [PATCH] ieee802154: nl-mac: validate device pointers before dereference

[Kalpesh Solanki]

On Mon, Nov 02, 2026 at 01:13:xx +0100, Andrew Lunn wrote:
> Did you consider the other fix? Is there a use case for setting a TUN
> interface to ARPHRD_IEEE802154? If not, maybe return EOPNOTSUPP, or
> EINVAL?
> 
> Andrew

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for reviewing and raising this point!

Regarding whether there is a use case for setting a TUN interface to
ARPHRD_IEEE802154:
In real hardware/subsystem usage, virtual 802.15.4 interfaces are typically
handled via mac802154_hwsim or fakelb (which properly allocate wpan_phy and
dev->ieee802154_ptr), rather than raw TUN. However, tun.c explicitly recognizes
ARPHRD_IEEE802154 and ARPHRD_IEEE802154_MONITOR in tun_get_addr_len():

	case ARPHRD_IEEE802154:
	case ARPHRD_IEEE802154_MONITOR:
		return IEEE802154_EXTENDED_ADDR_LEN;

which sets the hardware address length to IEEE802154_EXTENDED_ADDR_LEN on
TUNSETLINK for userspace network stacks/simulators (such as IoT testbeds or
custom TAP-based emulators) that expect 802.15.4 addressing.

Regarding fixing this in drivers/net/tun.c vs net/ieee802154/nl-mac.c:
We considered returning -EOPNOTSUPP / -EINVAL in TUNSETLINK, but chose to
guard nl-mac.c for the following reasons:

1. Subsystem robustness / Defense-in-depth:
   ieee802154_llsec_dump_table(), ieee802154_dump_iface(), and
   ieee802154_nl_get_dev() assumed that any netdevice in the namespace
   with dev->type == ARPHRD_IEEE802154 has valid ieee802154_ptr and
   mlme_ops. When that assumption fails, it triggers a NULL dereference
   while holding genl_mutex, leaving the mutex permanently locked and
   deadlocking generic netlink system-wide for unprivileged users.

   Other parts of the ieee802154 subsystem already make this defensive check:
   - net/ieee802154/6lowpan/core.c (lowpan_newlink):
       if (wdev->type != ARPHRD_IEEE802154 || !wdev->ieee802154_ptr)
   - net/ieee802154/socket.c:
       if (dev->type == ARPHRD_IEEE802154 && dev->ieee802154_ptr && ...)

   Guarding nl-mac.c ensures the IEEE 802.15.4 netlink handlers are safe
   regardless of how an ARPHRD_IEEE802154 device was created or modified.

2. Userspace ABI compatibility:
   TUNSETLINK has historically permitted arbitrary link types on down
   interfaces, and explicitly supports ARPHRD_IEEE802154 address lengths.
   Disallowing it in TUNSETLINK might break existing user tools or test
   frameworks that use TAP/TUN with this link type.

That said, if the consensus is that TUNSETLINK should reject
ARPHRD_IEEE802154 (or arbitrary link types that lack driver backend support),
I would be more than happy to submit a follow-up patch for tun.c as well.

Do you think we should reject it in tun.c in addition to guarding nl-mac.c,
or do you prefer restricting TUNSETLINK instead?

Thanks,
Kalpesh