Affected: Linux

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

xfrm: delete intermediate secpath entry in packet offload mode

Packets handled by hardware have added secpath as a way to inform XFRM core code that this path was already handled. That secpath is not needed at all after policy is checked and it is removed later in the stack.

However, in the case of IP forwarding is enabled (/proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward), that secpath is not removed and packets which already were handled are reentered to the driver TX path with xfrm_offload set.

The following kernel panic is observed in mlx5 in such case:

mlx5_core 0000:04:00.0 enp4s0f0np0: Link up mlx5_core 0000:04:00.1 enp4s0f1np1: Link up Initializing XFRM netlink socket IPsec XFRM device driver BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000 #PF: supervisor instruction fetch in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0010) - not-present page PGD 0 P4D 0 Oops: Oops: 0010 [#1] PREEMPT SMP CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 6.13.0-rc1-alex #3 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 1.13.0-1ubuntu1.1 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:0x0 Code: Unable to access opcode bytes at 0xffffffffffffffd6. RSP: 0018:ffffb87380003800 EFLAGS: 00010206 RAX: ffff8df004e02600 RBX: ffffb873800038d8 RCX: 00000000ffff98cf RDX: ffff8df00733e108 RSI: ffff8df00521fb80 RDI: ffff8df001661f00 RBP: ffffb87380003850 R08: ffff8df013980000 R09: 0000000000000010 R10: 0000000000000002 R11: 0000000000000002 R1…