CVE-2024-57996 net_sched: sch_sfq: don't allow 1 packet limit

What is CVE-2024-57996?

CVE-2024-57996 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 27 Feb 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:

net_sched: sch_sfq: don't allow 1 packet limit

The current implementation does not work correctly with a limit of 1. iproute2 actually checks for this and this patch adds the check in kernel as well.

This fixes the following syzkaller reported crash:

UBSAN: array-index-out-of-bounds in net/sched/sch_sfq.c:210:6 index 65535 is out of range for type 'struct sfq_head[128]' CPU: 0 PID: 2569 Comm: syz-executor101 Not tainted 5.10.0-smp-DEV #1 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 09/13/2024 Call Trace: __dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:79 [inline] dump_stack+0x125/0x19f lib/dump_stack.c:120 ubsan_epilogue lib/ubsan.c:148 [inline] __ubsan_handle_out_of_bounds+0xed/0x120 lib/ubsan.c:347 sfq_link net/sched/sch_sfq.c:210 [inline] sfq_dec+0x528/0x600 net/sched/sch_sfq.c:238 sfq_dequeue+0x39b/0x9d0 net/sched/sch_sfq.c:500 sfq_reset+0x13/0x50 net/sched/sch_sfq.c:525 qdisc_reset+0xfe/0x510 net/sched/sch_generic.c:1026 tbf_reset+0x3d/0x100 net/sched/sch_tbf.c:319 qdisc_reset+0xfe/0x510 net/sched/sch_generic.c:1026 dev_reset_queue+0x8c/0x140 net/sched/sch_generic.c:1296 netdev_for_each_tx_queue include/linux/netdevice.h:2350 [inline] dev_deactivate_many+0x6dc/0xc20 net/sched/sch_generic.c:1362 __dev_close_many+0x214/0x350 net/core/dev.c:1468 dev_close_many+0x207/0x510 net/core/dev.c:1506 unregister_netdevice_many+0x40f/0x16b0 net/core/dev.c:10738 unregister_netdevice_queue+0x2be/0x310 net/core/dev.c:10695 unregister_netdevice include/linux/netdevice.h:2893 [inline] __tun_detach+0x6b6/0x1600 drivers/net/tun.c:689 tun_detach drivers/net/tun.c:705 [inline] tun_chr_close+0x104/0x1b0 drivers/net/tun.c:3640 __fput+0x203/0x840 fs/file_table.c:280 task_work_run+0x129/0x1b0 kernel/task_work.c:185 exit_task_work include/linux/task_work.h:33 [inline] do_exit+0x5ce/0x2200 kernel/exit.c:931 do_group_exit+0x144/0x310 kernel/exit.c:1046 __do_sys_exit_group kernel/exit.c:1057 [inline] __se_sys_exit_group kernel/exit.c:1055 [inline] __x64_sys_exit_group+0x3b/0x40 kernel/exit.c:1055 do_syscall_64+0x6c/0xd0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x61/0xcb RIP: 0033:0x7fe5e7b52479 Code: Unable to access opcode bytes at RIP 0x7fe5e7b5244f. RSP: 002b:00007ffd3c800398 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 00000000000000e7 RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 00007fe5e7b52479 RDX: 000000000000003c RSI: 00000000000000e7 RDI: 0000000000000000 RBP: 00007fe5e7bcd2d0 R08: ffffffffffffffb8 R09: 0000000000000014 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 00007fe5e7bcd2d0 R13: 0000000000000000 R14: 00007fe5e7bcdd20 R15: 00007fe5e7b24270

The crash can be also be reproduced with the following (with a tc recompiled to allow for sfq limits of 1):

tc qdisc add dev dummy0 handle 1: root tbf rate 1Kbit burst 100b lat 1s ../iproute2-6.9.0/tc/tc qdisc add dev dummy0 handle 2: parent 1:10 sfq limit 1 ifconfig dummy0 up ping -I dummy0 -f -c2 -W0.1 8.8.8.8 sleep 1

Scenario that triggers the crash:

* the first packet is sent and queued in TBF and SFQ; qdisc qlen is 1

* TBF dequeues: it peeks from SFQ which moves the packet to the gso_skb list and keeps qdisc qlen set to 1. TBF is out of tokens so it schedules itself for later.

* the second packet is sent and TBF tries to queues it to SFQ. qdisc qlen is now 2 and because the SFQ limit is 1 the packet is dropped by SFQ. At this point qlen is 1, and all of the SFQ slots are empty, however q->tail is not NULL.

At this point, assuming no more packets are queued, when sch_dequeue runs again it will decrement the qlen for the current empty slot causing an underflow and the subsequent out of bounds access.

Weakness: CWE-129

Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-57996?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2024-57996?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2024-57996 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-57996 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as AZL-57993, BELL-CVE-2024-57996, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-57996, GHSA-25pp-pjqx-3f66, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2024-57996, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2024-57996 and 5 more.