CVE-2026-74742
Received
Received - Intake
Denial of Service in Linux Kernel veth Driver
Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-74742, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.
Publication date: 2026-08-26
Last updated on: 2026-08-26
Assigner: kernel.org
Description
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
veth: fix queue index used to wake the peer txq in veth_poll
veth_poll() derives the index of the peer TX queue to wake from
rq->xdp_rxq.queue_index. That field is only initialized by
xdp_rxq_info_reg() in veth_enable_xdp_range(), which runs only when an
XDP program is attached. On the plain GRO/NAPI path
(veth_napi_enable_range()) xdp_rxq_info_reg() is never called, so
queue_index stays 0 for every queue, as priv->rq is zero-allocated.
So in a multi-queue setup with GRO enabled and no XDP program attached,
every NAPI instance looks at the peer's TX queue 0. If veth_xmit() stops
peer TX queue 1 because the ptr_ring is full (NETDEV_TX_BUSY), nothing
ever wakes it again: the poller draining queue 1 wakes queue 0 instead.
veth implements no ndo_tx_timeout, so the netdev watchdog does not kick
in either, and the queue stays stopped indefinitely.
Derive the index from the position of the rq within priv->rq instead,
which is correct regardless of whether XDP was ever enabled.
Scripts to reproduce the stall are available at
https://github.com/netoptimizer/veth-backpressure-performance-testing
CVSS Scores
EPSS Scores
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Meta Information
Affected Vendors & Products
| Vendor | Product | Version / Range |
|---|---|---|
| linux_kernel | linux_kernel | * |
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
CWE
KEV
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-UNKNOWN |
