CVE-2026-98023 vxlan: reject dynamic fdb entries that reference a nexthop id
A race condition in Linux kernel VXLAN allows list corruption and use-after-free, potentially causing denial of service or code execution.
- 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-2026-98023?
CVE-2026-98023 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux, published on 25 Sep 2026. 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:
vxlan: reject dynamic fdb entries that reference a nexthop id
The commit cited in the Fixes tag allowed VXLAN FDB entries to point to FDB nexthops so that overlay traffic could be load balanced across multiple VTEPs. Such entries can only be configured from user space, cannot be learned and cannot roam. They only make sense with a user space control plane such as E-VPN where data plane learning is disabled.
Despite that, the VXLAN driver does not currently prevent such entries from being configured with the "dynamic" flag. The per-nexthop FDB list is only protected by the per-device hash lock, which is not sufficient when two VXLAN devices point to the same FDB nexthop and therefore share the list. Aging runs in softirq context without RTNL, so an entry deleted by one device can race with an addition or deletion from the other, leading to list corruption:
list_del corruption. next->prev should be ffff8881069d9548, but was dead000000000122. (next=ffff8881069d9448) WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 90 at lib/list_debug.c:65 __list_del_entry_valid_or_report+0x1aa/0x210 ... vxlan_fdb_destroy+0x5b8/0xad0 vxlan_cleanup+0x328/0x450 call_timer_fn+0x2a/0x1c0 run_timer_softirq+0x18c/0x210 BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in vxlan_fdb_destroy
Fix this by rejecting the bogus configuration of dynamic FDB entries that point to FDB nexthops, both when created and when an existing entry is updated. As such, the per-nexthop FDB list is only ever mutated under the RTNL lock. Add test cases to make sure that this does not regress in the future.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-98023?
How do I fix CVE-2026-98023?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2026-98023 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98023 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-104193, BELL-CVE-2026-98023, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98023, GHSA-vcqm-xvp9-x4jq, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98023.