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CVE-2025-71097

Vulnerability Description

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

ipv4: Fix reference count leak when using error routes with nexthop objects

When a nexthop object is deleted, it is marked as dead and then
fib_table_flush() is called to flush all the routes that are using the
dead nexthop.

The current logic in fib_table_flush() is to only flush error routes
(e.g., blackhole) when it is called as part of network namespace
dismantle (i.e., with flush_all=true). Therefore, error routes are not
flushed when their nexthop object is deleted:

# ip link add name dummy1 up type dummy
# ip nexthop add id 1 dev dummy1
# ip route add 198.51.100.1/32 nhid 1
# ip route add blackhole 198.51.100.2/32 nhid 1
# ip nexthop del id 1
# ip route show
blackhole 198.51.100.2 nhid 1 dev dummy1

As such, they keep holding a reference on the nexthop object which in
turn holds a reference on the nexthop device, resulting in a reference
count leak:

# ip link del dev dummy1
[ 70.516258] unregister_netdevice: waiting for dummy1 to become free. Usage count = 2

Fix by flushing error routes when their nexthop is marked as dead.

IPv6 does not suffer from this problem.

Vulnerability Details

Published Date
Last Modified
Source
NVD

External References

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