CVE-2026-72139 tcp: defer md5sig_info kfree past RCU grace period in tcp_connect
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

tcp: defer md5sig_info kfree past RCU grace period in tcp_connect

The md5+ao reconciliation in tcp_connect() (net/ipv4/tcp_output.c)
has two symmetric branches:

	if (needs_md5) {
		tcp_ao_destroy_sock(sk, false);
	} else if (needs_ao) {
		tcp_clear_md5_list(sk);
		kfree(rcu_replace_pointer(tp->md5sig_info, NULL, ...));
	}

Both branches free a per-socket auth-info object while the socket is
in TCP_SYN_SENT and is already on the inet ehash (inserted by
inet_hash_connect() in tcp_v4_connect()). Both branches are reachable
by softirq RX-path readers that load the corresponding info pointer
via implicit RCU before bh_lock_sock_nested() is taken.

The needs_md5 branch is fixed in the prior patch by re-introducing
the call_rcu() free in tcp_ao_destroy_sock(): the equivalent per-key
loop runs inside tcp_ao_info_free_rcu(), the RCU callback, so by the
time it frees each tcp_ao_key all softirq readers that captured the
container have already completed rcu_read_unlock().

The needs_ao branch is not symmetric in the same way. The container
free can be deferred via kfree_rcu(md5sig, rcu) -- struct
tcp_md5sig_info already has the required rcu member
(include/net/tcp.h:1999-2002), and the rest of the tree already does
this in the tcp_md5sig_info_add() rollback paths
(net/ipv4/tcp_ipv4.c:1410, 1436). But the per-key teardown is done
by tcp_clear_md5_list() in process context BEFORE the container's
RCU grace period: it walks &md5sig->head and frees each
tcp_md5sig_key with bare hlist_del + kfree. A concurrent softirq
reader in __tcp_md5_do_lookup() / __tcp_md5_do_lookup_exact()
(tcp_ipv4.c:1253, 1298) walks the same list via
hlist_for_each_entry_rcu() and races with that bare kfree on the
keys themselves -- a per-key slab use-after-free of the same class
as the TCP-AO bug, on the same race window.

Fix this in two halves:

  1. Convert the bare kfree() in tcp_connect() to kfree_rcu() so the
     md5sig_info container joins the rest of the md5sig lifecycle.
     The local-variable lift is mechanical and required because
     kfree_rcu() is a macro that expects an lvalue.

  2. Make tcp_clear_md5_list() RCU-safe by replacing hlist_del +
     kfree(key) with hlist_del_rcu + kfree_rcu(key, rcu). struct
     tcp_md5sig_key already carries the rcu member
     (include/net/tcp.h:1995) and tcp_md5_do_del()
     (net/ipv4/tcp_ipv4.c:1456) already uses kfree_rcu, so this
     restores the lifecycle invariant the rest of the file follows
     rather than introducing a one-off.

The other caller of tcp_clear_md5_list() is tcp_md5_destruct_sock()
(net/ipv4/tcp.c:412), which runs from the sock destructor when the
socket is already unhashed and unreachable; the extra grace period
there is unnecessary but harmless. Making the helper unconditionally
RCU-safe is the cleaner contract.

The needs_ao branch is not reachable by the userns reproducer used
to demonstrate the AO-side splat (the repro installs both keys but
ends up in the needs_md5 branch because the connect peer matches
the MD5 key, not the AO key); however the symmetric race exists
and a maintainer touching this code should not have to think about
which branch escapes RCU and which one does not.

[also credits to Qihang, who found that this races with tcp-diag]
CVSS v3.1 score: 9.8