netfilter: nf_conntrack: fix crash due to removal of uninitialised entry
CVE: CVE-2025-38472
Component: kernel
CWE: CWE-362
Severity: Moderate
CVSS v3: 7.2/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
Release date: 2025-07-28T00:00:00+00:00

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

netfilter: nf_conntrack: fix crash due to removal of uninitialised entry

A crash in conntrack was reported while trying to unlink the conntrack
entry from the hash bucket list:
    [exception RIP: __nf_ct_delete_from_lists+172]
    [..]
 #7 [ff539b5a2b043aa0] nf_ct_delete at ffffffffc124d421 [nf_conntrack]
 #8 [ff539b5a2b043ad0] nf_ct_gc_expired at ffffffffc124d999 [nf_conntrack]
 #9 [ff539b5a2b043ae0] __nf_conntrack_find_get at ffffffffc124efbc [nf_conntrack]
    [..]

The nf_conn struct is marked as allocated from slab but appears to be in
a partially initialised state:

 ct hlist pointer is garbage; looks like the ct hash value
 (hence crash).
 ct->status is equal to IPS_CONFIRMED|IPS_DYING, which is expected
 ct->timeout is 30000 (=30s), which is unexpected.

Everything else looks like normal udp conntrack entry.  If we ignore
ct->status and pretend its 0, the entry matches those that are newly
allocated but not yet inserted into the hash:
  - ct hlist pointers are overloaded and store/cache the raw tuple hash
  - ct->timeout matches the relative time expected for a new udp flow
    rather than the absolute 'jiffies' value.

If it were not for the presence of IPS_CONFIRMED,
__nf_conntrack_find_get() would have skipped the entry.

Theory is that we did hit following race:

cpu x 			cpu y			cpu z
 found entry E		found entry E
 E is expired		<preemption>
 nf_ct_delete()
 return E to rcu slab
					init_conntrack
					E is re-inited,
					ct->status set to 0
					reply tuplehash hnnode.pprev
					stores hash value.

cpu y found E right before it was deleted on cpu x.
E is now re-inited on cpu z.  cpu y was preempted before
checking for expiry and/or confirm bit.

					->refcnt set to 1
					E now owned by skb
					->timeout set to 30000

If cpu y were to resume now, it would observe E as
expired but would skip E due to missing CONFIRMED bit.

					nf_conntrack_confirm gets called
					sets: ct->status |= CONFIRMED
					This is wrong: E is not yet added
					to hashtable.

cpu y resumes, it observes E as expired but CONFIRMED:
			<resumes>
			nf_ct_expired()
			 -> yes (ct->timeout is 30s)
			confirmed bit set.

cpu y will try to delete E from the hashtable:
			nf_ct_delete() -> set DYING bit
			__nf_ct_delete_from_lists

Even this scenario doesn't guarantee a crash:
cpu z still holds the table bucket lock(s) so y blocks:

			wait for spinlock held by z

					CONFIRMED is set but there is no
					guarantee ct will be added to hash:
					"chaintoolong" or "clash resolution"
					logic both skip the insert step.
					reply hnnode.pprev still stores the
					hash value.

					unlocks spinlock
					return NF_DROP
			<unblocks, then
			 crashes on hlist_nulls_del_rcu pprev>

In case CPU z does insert the entry into the hashtable, cpu y will unlink
E again right away but no crash occurs.

Without 'cpu y' race, 'garbage' hlist is of no consequence:
ct refcnt remains at 1, eventually skb will be free'd and E gets
destroyed via: nf_conntrack_put -> nf_conntrack_destroy -> nf_ct_destroy.

To resolve this, move the IPS_CONFIRMED assignment after the table
insertion but before the unlock.

Pablo points out that the confirm-bit-store could be reordered to happen
before hlist add resp. the timeout fixup, so switch to set_bit and
before_atomic memory barrier to prevent this.

It doesn't matter if other CPUs can observe a newly inserted entry right
before the CONFIRMED bit was set:

Such event cannot be distinguished from above "E is the old incarnation"
case: the entry will be skipped.

Also change nf_ct_should_gc() to first check the confirmed bit.

The gc sequence is:
 1. Check if entry has expired, if not skip to next entry
 2. Obtain a reference to the expired entry.
 3. Call nf_ct_should_gc() to double-check step 1.

nf_ct_should_gc() is thus called only for entries that already failed an
expiry check. After this patch, once the confirmed bit check pas
---truncated---

Statement: Actual only starting from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.

The vulnerability in nf_conntrack can be triggered by an unprivileged user under typical configurations where user and network namespaces are available (e.g., via unshare or CLONE_NEWNET). This enables the user to initiate Netfilter-based networking operations (such as NAT or connection tracking) even if the system had no prior active conntrack entries.

Since exploitation does not require elevated privileges beyond what is granted in the default namespace setup with CAP_NET_RAW or similar, the Privileges Required (PR) is assessed as Low. The primary attack vector is remote-triggered packets from user-controlled namespaces that cause conntrack allocation and destruction races, leading to a potential kernel panic (Availability: High).

Remediation:
For details on how to apply this update, which includes the changes described in this advisory, refer to:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258

The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.
For details on how to apply this update, which includes the changes described in this advisory, refer to:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258

The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.
For details on how to apply this update, which includes the changes described in this advisory, refer to:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258

The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.
For details on how to apply this update, which includes the changes described in this advisory, refer to:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258

The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.
For details on how to apply this update, which includes the changes described in this advisory, refer to:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258

The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.
In order to trigger the issue, it requires the ability to create user/net namespaces.

On non-containerized deployments of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, you can disable user namespaces by setting user.max_user_namespaces to 0:

# echo "user.max_user_namespaces=0" > /etc/sysctl.d/userns.conf
# sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.d/userns.conf

On containerized deployments, such as Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, do not use this mitigation as the functionality is needed to be enabled.

If nf_conntrack not being used with netfilter, then disabled it.
To mitigate this issue, prevent module nf_conntrack from being loaded. Please see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/41278 for how to blacklist a kernel module to prevent it from loading automatically.

Also check the solution about Kernel panic in __nf_ct_delete_from_lists for workaround at https://access.redhat.com/solutions/7130481 with broader details.