CVE-2026-74543 — net: udp_tunnel: fix memory leak in udp_tunnel_nic_unregister()

Affected: Linux

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

net: udp_tunnel: fix memory leak in udp_tunnel_nic_unregister()

syzbot reported a memory leak [1] in the UDP tunnel NIC offload code.

When device registration fails (e.g. in register_netdevice()), netdev core unwinds by sending a single NETDEV_UNREGISTER notification. If work was queued during NETDEV_REGISTER (utn->work_pending is set), udp_tunnel_nic_unregister() returns early:

if (utn->work_pending) return;

Because failed registrations do not enter netdev_wait_allrefs_any(), no subsequent NETDEV_UNREGISTER rebroadcast will ever occur. As a result, the struct udp_tunnel_nic allocated in udp_tunnel_nic_alloc() is leaked permanently.

Fix this by removing the early return. Instead, synchronously cancel any pending work with cancel_delayed_work_sync() before freeing @utn.

To be able to call cancel_delayed_work_sync() while holding RTNL (the work also needs RTNL), switch udp_tunnel_nic_device_sync_work() to rtnl_trylock(). If RTNL is contended, requeue the work with a 1 jiffy delay (via queue_delayed_work()) to prevent high CPU contention while waiting for RTNL lock.

The utn->work_pending bookkeeping is no longer needed and is removed, as the workqueue core already tracks the pending/running state of the work.

[1] BUG: memory leak unreferenced object 0xffff888127d5f840 (size 96): comm "syz-executor", pid 5806, jiffies 4294942188 backtrace (crc 99fdb6c8): __kmalloc_noprof+0x3bf/0x550 udp_t…

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CVE-2026-74543 — net: udp_tunnel: fix memory leak in udp_tunnel_nic_unregister()