CVE-2023-53188: kernel: net: openvswitch: fix race on port output
Component: kernel
Severity: Moderate
CWE: CWE-821 (Incorrect Synchronization)
CVSS v3: 4.4 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)
Public date: 2025-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

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

net: openvswitch: fix race on port output

assume the following setup on a single machine:
1. An openvswitch instance with one bridge and default flows
2. two network namespaces "server" and "client"
3. two ovs interfaces "server" and "client" on the bridge
4. for each ovs interface a veth pair with a matching name and 32 rx and
   tx queues
5. move the ends of the veth pairs to the respective network namespaces
6. assign ip addresses to each of the veth ends in the namespaces (needs
   to be the same subnet)
7. start some http server on the server network namespace
8. test if a client in the client namespace can reach the http server

when following the actions below the host has a chance of getting a cpu
stuck in a infinite loop:
1. send a large amount of parallel requests to the http server (around
   3000 curls should work)
2. in parallel delete the network namespace (do not delete interfaces or
   stop the server, just kill the namespace)

there is a low chance that this will cause the below kernel cpu stuck
message. If this does not happen just retry.
Below there is also the output of bpftrace for the functions mentioned
in the output.

The series of events happening here is:
1. the network namespace is deleted calling
   `unregister_netdevice_many_notify` somewhere in the process
2. this sets first `NETREG_UNREGISTERING` on both ends of the veth and
   then runs `synchronize_net`
3. it then calls `call_netdevice_notifiers` with `NETDEV_UNREGISTER`
4. this is then handled by `dp_device_event` which calls
   `ovs_netdev_detach_dev` (if a vport is found, which is the case for
   the veth interface attached to ovs)
5. this removes the rx_handlers of the device but does not prevent
   packages to be sent to the device
6. `dp_device_event` then queues the vport deletion to work in
   background as a ovs_lock is needed that we do not hold in the
   unregistration path
7. `unregister_netdevice_many_notify` continues to call
   `netdev_unregister_kobject` which sets `real_num_tx_queues` to 0
8. port deletion continues (but details are not relevant for this issue)
9. at some future point the background task deletes the vport

If after 7. but before 9. a packet is send to the ovs vport (which is
not deleted at this point in time) which forwards it to the
`dev_queue_xmit` flow even though the device is unregistering.
In `skb_tx_hash` (which is called in the `dev_queue_xmit`) path there is
a while loop (if the packet has a rx_queue recorded) that is infinite if
`dev->real_num_tx_queues` is zero.

To prevent this from happening we update `do_output` to handle devices
without carrier the same as if the device is not found (which would
be the code path after 9. is done).

Additionally we now produce a warning in `skb_tx_hash` if we will hit
the infinite loop.

bpftrace (first word is function name):

__dev_queue_xmit server: real_num_tx_queues: 1, cpu: 2, pid: 28024, tid: 28024, skb_addr: 0xffff9edb6f207000, reg_state: 1
netdev_core_pick_tx server: addr: 0xffff9f0a46d4a000 real_num_tx_queues: 1, cpu: 2, pid: 28024, tid: 28024, skb_addr: 0xffff9edb6f207000, reg_state: 1
dp_device_event server: real_num_tx_queues: 1 cpu 9, pid: 21024, tid: 21024, event 2, reg_state: 1
synchronize_rcu_expedited: cpu 9, pid: 21024, tid: 21024
synchronize_rcu_expedited: cpu 9, pid: 21024, tid: 21024
synchronize_rcu_expedited: cpu 9, pid: 21024, tid: 21024
synchronize_rcu_expedited: cpu 9, pid: 21024, tid: 21024
dp_device_event server: real_num_tx_queues: 1 cpu 9, pid: 21024, tid: 21024, event 6, reg_state: 2
ovs_netdev_detach_dev server: real_num_tx_queues: 1 cpu 9, pid: 21024, tid: 21024, reg_state: 2
netdev_rx_handler_unregister server: real_num_tx_queues: 1, cpu: 9, pid: 21024, tid: 21024, reg_state: 2
synchronize_rcu_expedited: cpu 9, pid: 21024, tid: 21024
netdev_rx_handler_unregister ret server: real_num_tx_queues: 1, cpu: 9, pid: 21024, tid: 21024, reg_state: 2
dp_
---truncated---

Statement: This vulnerability is rated Moderate for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. A race condition in the Open vSwitch kernel module can lead to a denial of service, causing a CPU to become stuck in an infinite loop. Exploitation requires a specific setup involving Open vSwitch, veth pairs, and concurrent deletion of network namespaces while traffic is active; these actions require elevated privileges such as `CAP_NET_ADMIN`. Attack complexity is similarly high, since triggering this vulnerability requires a specific timing window, sustained parallel traffic, and a namespace teardown. The only meaningful impact from successfully causing the vulnerability is to availability. No data leakage, memory disclosure, or information exposure is involved, and there is no evidence of memory corruption.

Affected upstream versions: 4.3
Fixed upstream versions: 0, 5.10.237, 5.15.181, 5.4.293, 6.1.25, 6.2.12, 6.3
Upstream repository: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git
Upstream fix commit: 9b0dd09c1ceb35950d2884848099fccc9ec9a123