# CVE-2023-53103: bonding: restore bond's IFF_SLAVE flag if a non-eth dev enslave fails

> A logic error in the Linux kernel bonding driver causes a warning and potential instability when enslaving non-ethernet devices fails, leading to denial of service.

- **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:** 2 May 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2023-53103, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53103, GHSA-p95f-4wm6-q7g3, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2023-53103, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53103

## What is CVE-2023-53103?

CVE-2023-53103 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 2 May 2025. 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:

bonding: restore bond's IFF_SLAVE flag if a non-eth dev enslave fails

syzbot reported a warning[1] where the bond device itself is a slave and
we try to enslave a non-ethernet device as the first slave which fails
but then in the error path when ether_setup() restores the bond device
it also clears all flags. In my previous fix[2] I restored the
IFF_MASTER flag, but I didn't consider the case that the bond device
itself might also be a slave with IFF_SLAVE set, so we need to restore
that flag as well. Use the bond_ether_setup helper which does the right
thing and restores the bond's flags properly.

Steps to reproduce using a nlmon dev:
 $ ip l add nlmon0 type nlmon
 $ ip l add bond1 type bond
 $ ip l add bond2 type bond
 $ ip l set bond1 master bond2
 $ ip l set dev nlmon0 master bond1
 $ ip -d l sh dev bond1
 22: bond1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,MASTER> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue master bond2 state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
 (now bond1's IFF_SLAVE flag is gone and we'll hit a warning[3] if we
  try to delete it)

[1] https://syzkaller.appspot.com/bug?id=391c7b1f6522182899efba27d891f1743e8eb3ef
[2] commit 7d5cd2ce5292 ("bonding: correctly handle bonding type change on enslave failure")
[3] example warning:
 [   27.008664] bond1: (slave nlmon0): The slave device specified does not support setting the MAC address
 [   27.008692] bond1: (slave nlmon0): Error -95 calling set_mac_address
 [   32.464639] bond1 (unregistering): Released all slaves
 [   32.464685] ------------[ cut here ]------------
 [   32.464686] WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 2004 at net/core/dev.c:10829 unregister_netdevice_many+0x72a/0x780
 [   32.464694] Modules linked in: br_netfilter bridge bonding virtio_net
 [   32.464699] CPU: 1 PID: 2004 Comm: ip Kdump: loaded Not tainted 5.18.0-rc3+ #47
 [   32.464703] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 1.16.1-2.fc37 04/01/2014
 [   32.464704] RIP: 0010:unregister_netdevice_many+0x72a/0x780
 [   32.464707] Code: 99 fd ff ff ba 90 1a 00 00 48 c7 c6 f4 02 66 96 48 c7 c7 20 4d 35 96 c6 05 fa c7 2b 02 01 e8 be 6f 4a 00 0f 0b e9 73 fd ff ff <0f> 0b e9 5f fd ff ff 80 3d e3 c7 2b 02 00 0f 85 3b fd ff ff ba 59
 [   32.464710] RSP: 0018:ffffa006422d7820 EFLAGS: 00010206
 [   32.464712] RAX: ffff8f6e077140a0 RBX: ffffa006422d7888 RCX: 0000000000000000
 [   32.464714] RDX: ffff8f6e12edbe58 RSI: 0000000000000296 RDI: ffffffff96d4a520
 [   32.464716] RBP: ffff8f6e07714000 R08: ffffffff96d63600 R09: ffffa006422d7728
 [   32.464717] R10: 0000000000000ec0 R11: ffffffff9698c988 R12: ffff8f6e12edb140
 [   32.464719] R13: dead000000000122 R14: dead000000000100 R15: ffff8f6e12edb140
 [   32.464723] FS:  00007f297c2f1740(0000) GS:ffff8f6e5d900000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
 [   32.464725] CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
 [   32.464726] CR2: 00007f297bf1c800 CR3: 00000000115e8000 CR4: 0000000000350ee0
 [   32.464730] Call Trace:
 [   32.464763]  <TASK>
 [   32.464767]  rtnl_dellink+0x13e/0x380
 [   32.464776]  ? cred_has_capability.isra.0+0x68/0x100
 [   32.464780]  ? __rtnl_unlock+0x33/0x60
 [   32.464783]  ? bpf_lsm_capset+0x10/0x10
 [   32.464786]  ? security_capable+0x36/0x50
 [   32.464790]  rtnetlink_rcv_msg+0x14e/0x3b0
 [   32.464792]  ? _copy_to_iter+0xb1/0x790
 [   32.464796]  ? post_alloc_hook+0xa0/0x160
 [   32.464799]  ? rtnl_calcit.isra.0+0x110/0x110
 [   32.464802]  netlink_rcv_skb+0x50/0xf0
 [   32.464806]  netlink_unicast+0x216/0x340
 [   32.464809]  netlink_sendmsg+0x23f/0x480
 [   32.464812]  sock_sendmsg+0x5e/0x60
 [   32.464815]  ____sys_sendmsg+0x22c/0x270
 [   32.464818]  ? import_iovec+0x17/0x20
 [   32.464821]  ? sendmsg_copy_msghdr+0x59/0x90
 [   32.464823]  ? do_set_pte+0xa0/0xe0
 [   32.464828]  ___sys_sendmsg+0x81/0xc0
 [   32.464832]  ? mod_objcg_state+0xc6/0x300
 [   32.464835]  ? refill_obj_stock+0xa9/0x160
 [   32.464838]  ? memcg_slab_free_hook+0x1a5/0x1f0
 [   32.464842]  __sys_sendm
---truncated---

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53103?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-53103?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2023-53103 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53103 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-2023-53103 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-53103 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 2 May 2025. 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-2023-53103 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-2023-53103/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-53103/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-53103
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-53103
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-53103

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-53103/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.