CVE-2021-47099 veth: ensure skb entering GRO are not cloned.

High 7.8 Published 4 Mar 2024 Updated 5 Aug 2026

A kernel bug in the veth driver causes a crash when cloned skbs enter GRO, leading to denial of service.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: Any signed-in user
Attackable: Local or same network only
Victim action needed: Not needed
Fix: Available

What is CVE-2021-47099?

CVE-2021-47099 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 4 Mar 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

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

veth: ensure skb entering GRO are not cloned.

After commit d3256efd8e8b ("veth: allow enabling NAPI even without XDP"), if GRO is enabled on a veth device and TSO is disabled on the peer device, TCP skbs will go through the NAPI callback. If there is no XDP program attached, the veth code does not perform any share check, and shared/cloned skbs could enter the GRO engine.

Ignat reported a BUG triggered later-on due to the above condition:

[ 53.970529][ C1] kernel BUG at net/core/skbuff.c:3574! [ 53.981755][ C1] invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN PTI [ 53.982634][ C1] CPU: 1 PID: 19 Comm: ksoftirqd/1 Not tainted 5.16.0-rc5+ #25 [ 53.982634][ C1] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 0.0.0 02/06/2015 [ 53.982634][ C1] RIP: 0010:skb_shift+0x13ef/0x23b0 [ 53.982634][ C1] Code: ea 03 0f b6 04 02 48 89 fa 83 e2 07 38 d0 7f 08 84 c0 0f 85 41 0c 00 00 41 80 7f 02 00 4d 8d b5 d0 00 00 00 0f 85 74 f5 ff ff <0f> 0b 4d 8d 77 20 be 04 00 00 00 4c 89 44 24 78 4c 89 f7 4c 89 8c [ 53.982634][ C1] RSP: 0018:ffff8881008f7008 EFLAGS: 00010246 [ 53.982634][ C1] RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ffff8881180b4c80 RCX: 0000000000000000 [ 53.982634][ C1] RDX: 0000000000000002 RSI: ffff8881180b4d3c RDI: ffff88810bc9cac2 [ 53.982634][ C1] RBP: ffff8881008f70b8 R08: ffff8881180b4cf4 R09: ffff8881180b4cf0 [ 53.982634][ C1] R10: ffffed1022999e5c R11: 0000000000000002 R12: 0000000000000590 [ 53.982634][ C1] R13: ffff88810f940c80 R14: ffff88810f940d50 R15: ffff88810bc9cac0 [ 53.982634][ C1] FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff888235880000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 53.982634][ C1] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 53.982634][ C1] CR2: 00007ff5f9b86680 CR3: 0000000108ce8004 CR4: 0000000000170ee0 [ 53.982634][ C1] Call Trace: [ 53.982634][ C1] <TASK> [ 53.982634][ C1] tcp_sacktag_walk+0xaba/0x18e0 [ 53.982634][ C1] tcp_sacktag_write_queue+0xe7b/0x3460 [ 53.982634][ C1] tcp_ack+0x2666/0x54b0 [ 53.982634][ C1] tcp_rcv_established+0x4d9/0x20f0 [ 53.982634][ C1] tcp_v4_do_rcv+0x551/0x810 [ 53.982634][ C1] tcp_v4_rcv+0x22ed/0x2ed0 [ 53.982634][ C1] ip_protocol_deliver_rcu+0x96/0xaf0 [ 53.982634][ C1] ip_local_deliver_finish+0x1e0/0x2f0 [ 53.982634][ C1] ip_sublist_rcv_finish+0x211/0x440 [ 53.982634][ C1] ip_list_rcv_finish.constprop.0+0x424/0x660 [ 53.982634][ C1] ip_list_rcv+0x2c8/0x410 [ 53.982634][ C1] __netif_receive_skb_list_core+0x65c/0x910 [ 53.982634][ C1] netif_receive_skb_list_internal+0x5f9/0xcb0 [ 53.982634][ C1] napi_complete_done+0x188/0x6e0 [ 53.982634][ C1] gro_cell_poll+0x10c/0x1d0 [ 53.982634][ C1] __napi_poll+0xa1/0x530 [ 53.982634][ C1] net_rx_action+0x567/0x1270 [ 53.982634][ C1] __do_softirq+0x28a/0x9ba [ 53.982634][ C1] run_ksoftirqd+0x32/0x60 [ 53.982634][ C1] smpboot_thread_fn+0x559/0x8c0 [ 53.982634][ C1] kthread+0x3b9/0x490 [ 53.982634][ C1] ret_from_fork+0x22/0x30 [ 53.982634][ C1] </TASK>

Address the issue by skipping the GRO stage for shared or cloned skbs. To reduce the chance of OoO, try to unclone the skbs before giving up.

v1 -> v2: - use avoid skb_copy and fallback to netif_receive_skb - Eric

Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-47099?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2021-47099?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2021-47099 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-47099 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47099, GHSA-7xc6-rqxq-w4qm, UBUNTU-CVE-2021-47099.