Linux Kernel mlx5e XDP Stale Buffer Release Vulnerability
CVE-2026-99079 Published on October 23, 2026
net/mlx5e: Prevent stale XSK buffer release on refill retry
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
net/mlx5e: Prevent stale XSK buffer release on refill retry
When an XDP redirect to an AF_XDP socket fails because its RX ring is
full, the XSK core frees the buffer. During the subsequent batched refill
of a legacy cyclic RQ, mlx5e also releases the WQE's XSK buffer before
allocating a replacement. If that refill succeeds only partially, a WQE
left without a replacement retains its old buffer pointer.
The buffer can meanwhile be allocated to another WQE. A later refill
retry can then free the live buffer through the stale pointer and publish
the same UMEM frame twice.
Mark the WQE as released immediately after the driver-side free. The flag
is already cleared when a replacement buffer is assigned, so refill
retries no longer release stale pointers.
The failure is silent and produces no kernel warning or splat. A
standalone legacy cyclic-RQ zero-copy libxsk reproducer, using 64-byte UDP
traffic offered at 12 Mpps, detected it: stock stopped after 2,854,914
packets in 4.094 seconds, with 4,542 xdp_rx_ring_full events and 64
ownership/double-publication errors. With this change it processed
356,904,225 packets in 30 seconds despite 571,405 xdp_rx_ring_full events,
with no ownership or data errors.
Products Associated with CVE-2026-99079
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