CVE-2026-31508: kernel: net: openvswitch: Avoid releasing netdev before teardown completes
Component: kernel
Severity: Moderate
CWE: CWE-367 (Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition)
CVSS v3: 7 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H)
Public date: 2026-04-22T00:00:00+00:00

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

net: openvswitch: Avoid releasing netdev before teardown completes

The patch cited in the Fixes tag below changed the teardown code for
OVS ports to no longer unconditionally take the RTNL. After this change,
the netdev_destroy() callback can proceed immediately to the call_rcu()
invocation if the IFF_OVS_DATAPATH flag is already cleared on the
netdev.

The ovs_netdev_detach_dev() function clears the flag before completing
the unregistration, and if it gets preempted after clearing the flag (as
can happen on an -rt kernel), netdev_destroy() can complete and the
device can be freed before the unregistration completes. This leads to a
splat like:

[  998.393867] Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xff00000001000239: 0000 [#1] SMP PTI
[  998.393877] CPU: 42 UID: 0 PID: 55177 Comm: ip Kdump: loaded Not tainted 6.12.0-211.1.1.el10_2.x86_64+rt #1 PREEMPT_RT
[  998.393886] Hardware name: Dell Inc. PowerEdge R740/0JMK61, BIOS 2.24.0 03/27/2025
[  998.393889] RIP: 0010:dev_set_promiscuity+0x8d/0xa0
[  998.393901] Code: 00 00 75 d8 48 8b 53 08 48 83 ba b0 02 00 00 00 75 ca 48 83 c4 08 5b c3 cc cc cc cc 48 83 bf 48 09 00 00 00 75 91 48 8b 47 08 <48> 83 b8 b0 02 00 00 00 74 97 eb 81 0f 1f 80 00 00 00 00 90 90 90
[  998.393906] RSP: 0018:ffffce5864a5f6a0 EFLAGS: 00010246
[  998.393912] RAX: ff00000000ffff89 RBX: ffff894d0adf5a05 RCX: 0000000000000000
[  998.393917] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 00000000ffffffff RDI: ffff894d0adf5a05
[  998.393921] RBP: ffff894d19252000 R08: ffff894d19252000 R09: 0000000000000000
[  998.393924] R10: ffff894d19252000 R11: ffff894d192521b8 R12: 0000000000000006
[  998.393927] R13: ffffce5864a5f738 R14: 00000000ffffffe2 R15: 0000000000000000
[  998.393931] FS:  00007fad61971800(0000) GS:ffff894cc0140000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
[  998.393936] CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
[  998.393940] CR2: 000055df0a2a6e40 CR3: 000000011c7fe003 CR4: 00000000007726f0
[  998.393944] PKRU: 55555554
[  998.393946] Call Trace:
[  998.393949]  <TASK>
[  998.393952]  ? show_trace_log_lvl+0x1b0/0x2f0
[  998.393961]  ? show_trace_log_lvl+0x1b0/0x2f0
[  998.393975]  ? dp_device_event+0x41/0x80 [openvswitch]
[  998.394009]  ? __die_body.cold+0x8/0x12
[  998.394016]  ? die_addr+0x3c/0x60
[  998.394027]  ? exc_general_protection+0x16d/0x390
[  998.394042]  ? asm_exc_general_protection+0x26/0x30
[  998.394058]  ? dev_set_promiscuity+0x8d/0xa0
[  998.394066]  ? ovs_netdev_detach_dev+0x3a/0x80 [openvswitch]
[  998.394092]  dp_device_event+0x41/0x80 [openvswitch]
[  998.394102]  notifier_call_chain+0x5a/0xd0
[  998.394106]  unregister_netdevice_many_notify+0x51b/0xa60
[  998.394110]  rtnl_dellink+0x169/0x3e0
[  998.394121]  ? rt_mutex_slowlock.constprop.0+0x95/0xd0
[  998.394125]  rtnetlink_rcv_msg+0x142/0x3f0
[  998.394128]  ? avc_has_perm_noaudit+0x69/0xf0
[  998.394130]  ? __pfx_rtnetlink_rcv_msg+0x10/0x10
[  998.394132]  netlink_rcv_skb+0x50/0x100
[  998.394138]  netlink_unicast+0x292/0x3f0
[  998.394141]  netlink_sendmsg+0x21b/0x470
[  998.394145]  ____sys_sendmsg+0x39d/0x3d0
[  998.394149]  ___sys_sendmsg+0x9a/0xe0
[  998.394156]  __sys_sendmsg+0x7a/0xd0
[  998.394160]  do_syscall_64+0x7f/0x170
[  998.394162]  entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e
[  998.394165] RIP: 0033:0x7fad61bf4724
[  998.394188] Code: 89 02 b8 ff ff ff ff eb bb 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 0f 1f 00 f3 0f 1e fa 80 3d c5 e9 0c 00 00 74 13 b8 2e 00 00 00 0f 05 <48> 3d 00 f0 ff ff 77 54 c3 0f 1f 00 48 83 ec 28 89 54 24 1c 48 89
[  998.394189] RSP: 002b:00007ffd7e2f7cb8 EFLAGS: 00000202 ORIG_RAX: 000000000000002e
[  998.394191] RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000000000000001 RCX: 00007fad61bf4724
[  998.394193] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 00007ffd7e2f7d20 RDI: 0000000000000003
[  998.394194] RBP: 00007ffd7e2f7d90 R08: 0000000000000010 R09: 000000000000003f
[  998.394195] R10: 000055df11558010 R11: 0000000000000202 R12: 00007ffd7e2
---truncated---


Affected upstream versions: 5.10.248 < 5.10.253, 5.15.198 < 5.15.203, 6.1.160 < 6.1.168, 6.6.120 < 6.6.131, 6.12.64 < 6.12.80, 6.18.4 < 6.18.21, 6.19
Fixed upstream versions: 0, 5.10.253, 5.15.203, 6.1.168, 6.12.80, 6.18.21, 6.19.11, 6.6.131, 7.0
Upstream repository: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git
Upstream fix commit: df3c95be76103604e752131d9495a24814915ece