# CVE-2022-48644: net/sched: taprio: avoid disabling offload when it was never enabled

> A local attacker can crash the Linux kernel by configuring specific network queue disciplines, causing a null pointer dereference in the taprio scheduler.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **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:** Yes
- **Published:** 28 Apr 2024
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2022-48644, GHSA-vr5f-5953-gfj5, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-48644

## What is CVE-2022-48644?

CVE-2022-48644 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 28 Apr 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:

net/sched: taprio: avoid disabling offload when it was never enabled

In an incredibly strange API design decision, qdisc->destroy() gets
called even if qdisc->init() never succeeded, not exclusively since
commit 87b60cfacf9f ("net_sched: fix error recovery at qdisc creation"),
but apparently also earlier (in the case of qdisc_create_dflt()).

The taprio qdisc does not fully acknowledge this when it attempts full
offload, because it starts off with q->flags = TAPRIO_FLAGS_INVALID in
taprio_init(), then it replaces q->flags with TCA_TAPRIO_ATTR_FLAGS
parsed from netlink (in taprio_change(), tail called from taprio_init()).

But in taprio_destroy(), we call taprio_disable_offload(), and this
determines what to do based on FULL_OFFLOAD_IS_ENABLED(q->flags).

But looking at the implementation of FULL_OFFLOAD_IS_ENABLED()
(a bitwise check of bit 1 in q->flags), it is invalid to call this macro
on q->flags when it contains TAPRIO_FLAGS_INVALID, because that is set
to U32_MAX, and therefore FULL_OFFLOAD_IS_ENABLED() will return true on
an invalid set of flags.

As a result, it is possible to crash the kernel if user space forces an
error between setting q->flags = TAPRIO_FLAGS_INVALID, and the calling
of taprio_enable_offload(). This is because drivers do not expect the
offload to be disabled when it was never enabled.

The error that we force here is to attach taprio as a non-root qdisc,
but instead as child of an mqprio root qdisc:

$ tc qdisc add dev swp0 root handle 1: \
	mqprio num_tc 8 map 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 \
	queues 1@0 1@1 1@2 1@3 1@4 1@5 1@6 1@7 hw 0
$ tc qdisc replace dev swp0 parent 1:1 \
	taprio num_tc 8 map 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 \
	queues 1@0 1@1 1@2 1@3 1@4 1@5 1@6 1@7 base-time 0 \
	sched-entry S 0x7f 990000 sched-entry S 0x80 100000 \
	flags 0x0 clockid CLOCK_TAI
Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address fffffffffffffff8
[fffffffffffffff8] pgd=0000000000000000, p4d=0000000000000000
Internal error: Oops: 96000004 [#1] PREEMPT SMP
Call trace:
 taprio_dump+0x27c/0x310
 vsc9959_port_setup_tc+0x1f4/0x460
 felix_port_setup_tc+0x24/0x3c
 dsa_slave_setup_tc+0x54/0x27c
 taprio_disable_offload.isra.0+0x58/0xe0
 taprio_destroy+0x80/0x104
 qdisc_create+0x240/0x470
 tc_modify_qdisc+0x1fc/0x6b0
 rtnetlink_rcv_msg+0x12c/0x390
 netlink_rcv_skb+0x5c/0x130
 rtnetlink_rcv+0x1c/0x2c

Fix this by keeping track of the operations we made, and undo the
offload only if we actually did it.

I've added "bool offloaded" inside a 4 byte hole between "int clockid"
and "atomic64_t picos_per_byte". Now the first cache line looks like
below:

$ pahole -C taprio_sched net/sched/sch_taprio.o
struct taprio_sched {
        struct Qdisc * *           qdiscs;               /*     0     8 */
        struct Qdisc *             root;                 /*     8     8 */
        u32                        flags;                /*    16     4 */
        enum tk_offsets            tk_offset;            /*    20     4 */
        int                        clockid;              /*    24     4 */
        bool                       offloaded;            /*    28     1 */

        /* XXX 3 bytes hole, try to pack */

        atomic64_t                 picos_per_byte;       /*    32     0 */

        /* XXX 8 bytes hole, try to pack */

        spinlock_t                 current_entry_lock;   /*    40     0 */

        /* XXX 8 bytes hole, try to pack */

        struct sched_entry *       current_entry;        /*    48     8 */
        struct sched_gate_list *   oper_sched;           /*    56     8 */
        /* --- cacheline 1 boundary (64 bytes) --- */

Weakness: CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-48644?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-48644?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2022-48644 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-48644 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2022-48644 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-48644 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 28 Apr 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-48644 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-48644/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-48644/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-48644
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-48644
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-48644

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-48644/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.