CVE-2026-43501 PUBLISHED

ipv6: rpl: reserve mac_len headroom when recompressed SRH grows

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 01.05.2026 Published: 21.05.2026 Updated: 21.05.2026

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

ipv6: rpl: reserve mac_len headroom when recompressed SRH grows

ipv6_rpl_srh_rcv() decompresses an RFC 6554 Source Routing Header, swaps the next segment into ipv6_hdr->daddr, recompresses, then pulls the old header and pushes the new one plus the IPv6 header back. The recompressed header can be larger than the received one when the swap reduces the common-prefix length the segments share with daddr (CmprI=0, CmprE>0, seg[0][0] != daddr[0] gives the maximum +8 bytes).

pskb_expand_head() was gated on segments_left == 0, so on earlier segments the push consumed unchecked headroom. Once skb_push() leaves fewer than skb->mac_len bytes in front of data, skb_mac_header_rebuild()'s call to:

<pre>skb_set_mac_header(skb, -skb->mac_len); </pre>

will store (data - head) - mac_len into the u16 mac_header field, which wraps to ~65530, and the following memmove() writes mac_len bytes ~64KiB past skb->head.

A single AF_INET6/SOCK_RAW/IPV6_HDRINCL packet over lo with a two segment type-3 SRH (CmprI=0, CmprE=15) reaches headroom 8 after one pass; KASAN reports a 14-byte OOB write in ipv6_rthdr_rcv.

Fix this by expanding the head whenever the remaining room is less than the push size plus mac_len, and request that much extra so the rebuilt MAC header fits afterwards.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 8610c7c6e3bd647ff98d21c8bc0580e77bc2f8b3 to 8e8be63465a5e80394c70324603dfea1bfdad48f (excl.)
  • affected from 8610c7c6e3bd647ff98d21c8bc0580e77bc2f8b3 to 4babc2d9fda2df43823b85d08a0180b68f1b0854 (excl.)
  • affected from 8610c7c6e3bd647ff98d21c8bc0580e77bc2f8b3 to c261d07a80576dc8ccf394ef8f074f8c67a06b37 (excl.)
  • affected from 8610c7c6e3bd647ff98d21c8bc0580e77bc2f8b3 to 7398ebefbfd4f8a31d4f665a4213302fa995494b (excl.)
  • affected from 8610c7c6e3bd647ff98d21c8bc0580e77bc2f8b3 to 9e6bf146b55999a095bb14f73a843942456d1adc (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 5.7 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 5.7 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.6.140 to 6.6.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.12.86 to 6.12.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.27 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.0.4 to 7.0.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.1-rc2 to * (incl.)

References