CVE-2026-43173 PUBLISHED

net: ethernet: xscale: Check for PTP support properly

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 01.05.2026 Published: 06.05.2026 Updated: 06.05.2026

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

net: ethernet: xscale: Check for PTP support properly

In ixp4xx_get_ts_info() ixp46x_ptp_find() is called unconditionally despite this feature only existing on ixp46x, leading to the following splat from tcpdump:

root@OpenWrt:~# tcpdump -vv -X -i eth0 (...) Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000238 when read (...) Call trace: ptp_clock_index from ixp46x_ptp_find+0x1c/0x38 ixp46x_ptp_find from ixp4xx_get_ts_info+0x4c/0x64 ixp4xx_get_ts_info from __ethtool_get_ts_info+0x90/0x108 __ethtool_get_ts_info from __dev_ethtool+0xa00/0x2648 __dev_ethtool from dev_ethtool+0x160/0x234 dev_ethtool from dev_ioctl+0x2cc/0x460 dev_ioctl from sock_ioctl+0x1ec/0x524 sock_ioctl from sys_ioctl+0x51c/0xa94 sys_ioctl from ret_fast_syscall+0x0/0x44 (...) Segmentation fault

Check for ixp46x in ixp46x_ptp_find() before trying to set up PTP to avoid this.

To avoid altering the returned error code from ixp4xx_hwtstamp_set() which before this patch was -EOPNOTSUPP, we return -EOPNOTSUPP from ixp4xx_hwtstamp_set() if ixp46x_ptp_find() fails no matter the error code. The helper function ixp46x_ptp_find() helper returns -ENODEV.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 9055a2f591629b952910503e72ddae1371c44bf1 to 144dde3146985b25fa84d4e4b7c3d11e0f5fc5a4 (excl.)
  • affected from 9055a2f591629b952910503e72ddae1371c44bf1 to 5195b10c34b8993194ad12ad7d8f54d861be084b (excl.)
  • affected from 9055a2f591629b952910503e72ddae1371c44bf1 to 322437972f0a712767f6920ad34aba25f2e9b942 (excl.)
  • affected from 9055a2f591629b952910503e72ddae1371c44bf1 to 21d1e80d0d6e7d0c3cd8b1e001ed1fa92fb9f3f5 (excl.)
  • affected from 9055a2f591629b952910503e72ddae1371c44bf1 to 2d74412dfd3621552a394d55cc3dd26a7cbf608e (excl.)
  • affected from 9055a2f591629b952910503e72ddae1371c44bf1 to cbecebd35909f6cd0f6fb773f0fb73da99e02f8c (excl.)
  • affected from 9055a2f591629b952910503e72ddae1371c44bf1 to 594163ea88a03bdb412063af50fc7177ef3cbeae (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 5.15 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 5.15 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 5.15.202 to 5.15.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.1.165 to 6.1.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.6.128 to 6.6.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.12.75 to 6.12.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.16 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.19.6 to 6.19.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.0 to * (incl.)

References