CVE-2026-97958
Received
Received - Intake
Linux Kernel Netlink Chain API Denial of Service
Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-97958, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.
Publication date: 2026-09-25
Last updated on: 2026-09-25
Assigner: kernel.org
Description
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
net/sched: cls_api: Don't replay RTM_GETCHAIN in tc_ctl_chain().
If a netlink socket sends RTM_GETCHAIN requests repeatedly
without recv()ing the responses, tc_ctl_chain() hogs CPU and
triggers Hung Task splat. [0]
As caught in the stack trace, netlink_attachskb() could confuse
tc_ctl_chain() by returning -EAGAIN when the userspace netlink
socket's receive buffer is full.
The replay: label exists since commit 32a4f5ecd738 ("net: sched:
introduce chain object to uapi") but was not used initially.
Since commit 9f407f1768d3 ("net: sched: introduce chain templates"),
the label is needed for RTM_NEWCHAIN because tcf_proto_lookup_ops()
may release RTNL to call request_module().
However, the replay logic is unnecessary for RTM_GETCHAIN.
Let's apply the replay logic only for RTM_NEWCHAIN.
[0]:
INFO: task repro:1018 is blocked on a mutex likely owned by task repro:1022.
task:repro state:R running task stack:14096 pid:1022 tgid:1014 ppid:961 task_flags:0x400040 flags:0x00080000
Call Trace:
<TASK>
? clockevents_program_event (kernel/time/clockevents.c:372)
? pskb_expand_head (net/core/skbuff.c:615)
? skb_release_data (net/core/skbuff.c:1122)
? netlink_attachskb (./include/linux/skbuff.h:1323 ./include/linux/skbuff.h:1332 net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1232)
? __netlink_lookup (./include/linux/rcupdate.h:882 ./include/linux/rhashtable.h:711 net/netlink/af_netlink.c:499)
? tc_chain_notify (net/sched/cls_api.c:3045)
? tc_chain_notify (./include/linux/skbuff.h:1384 net/sched/cls_api.c:3041)
? netlink_unicast (net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1335)
? rtnl_unicast (./include/net/netlink.h:1198 net/core/rtnetlink.c:985)
? tc_ctl_chain (net/sched/cls_api.c:3242)
? rtnetlink_rcv_msg (net/core/rtnetlink.c:7146)
? netlink_unicast (net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1354)
? __pfx_rtnetlink_rcv_msg (net/core/rtnetlink.c:7177)
? netlink_rcv_skb (net/netlink/af_netlink.c:2556)
? netlink_unicast (net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1319)
? netlink_sendmsg (net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1900)
? __sock_sendmsg (net/socket.c:800)
? __sys_sendto (net/socket.c:2281)
? __x64_sys_sendto (net/socket.c:2288 net/socket.c:2284 net/socket.c:2284)
? do_syscall_64 (arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:61 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:84)
? entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe (arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:121)
</TASK>
CVSS Scores
EPSS Scores
| Probability: | |
| Percentile: |
Meta Information
Affected Vendors & Products
| Vendor | Product | Version / Range |
|---|---|---|
| linux | linux_kernel | * |
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
CWE
KEV
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-UNKNOWN |
