CVE-2026-45859 PUBLISHED

netfilter: nfnetlink_queue: do shared-unconfirmed check before segmentation

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 13.05.2026 Published: 27.05.2026 Updated: 27.05.2026

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

netfilter: nfnetlink_queue: do shared-unconfirmed check before segmentation

Ulrich reports a regression with nfqueue:

If an application did not set the 'F_GSO' capability flag and a gso packet with an unconfirmed nf_conn entry is received all packets are now dropped instead of queued, because the check happens after skb_gso_segment(). In that case, we did have exclusive ownership of the skb and its associated conntrack entry. The elevated use count is due to skb_clone happening via skb_gso_segment().

Move the check so that its peformed vs. the aggregated packet.

Then, annotate the individual segments except the first one so we can do a 2nd check at reinject time.

For the normal case, where userspace does in-order reinjects, this avoids packet drops: first reinjected segment continues traversal and confirms entry, remaining segments observe the confirmed entry.

While at it, simplify nf_ct_drop_unconfirmed(): We only care about unconfirmed entries with a refcnt > 1, there is no need to special-case dying entries.

This only happens with UDP. With TCP, the only unconfirmed packet will be the TCP SYN, those aren't aggregated by GRO.

Next patch adds a udpgro test case to cover this scenario.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 7d8dc1c7be8d3509e8f5164dd5df64c8e34d7eeb to 79b713ef4261a8ead96af4703f89d0b5f25532e2 (excl.)
  • affected from 7d8dc1c7be8d3509e8f5164dd5df64c8e34d7eeb to 23901aa6b8a2f294c4b774436b4691f3ff863a8f (excl.)
  • affected from 7d8dc1c7be8d3509e8f5164dd5df64c8e34d7eeb to b740e7ddd7ca0dbfeafca3f5e52717206cf28524 (excl.)
  • affected from 7d8dc1c7be8d3509e8f5164dd5df64c8e34d7eeb to 207b3ebacb6113acaaec0d171d5307032c690004 (excl.)
  • Version 6c4a0ba674f410ab99a30a16f32dac0ebfed5cd3 is affected
  • Version 6dcc8ba8a6074bb79040f502dc66ad23a58a1c86 is affected
  • Version 74e6eb7fd27ef1ccc68041dbc66e6d80d2e4a1a0 is affected
  • Version 025b3326c5c409b372d0103ad30f174e55adbd1b is affected
  • affected from 5.15.166 to 5.16 (excl.)
  • affected from 6.1.107 to 6.2 (excl.)
  • affected from 6.6.48 to 6.7 (excl.)
  • affected from 6.10.7 to 6.11 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 6.11 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 6.11 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.12.75 to 6.12.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.14 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.19.4 to 6.19.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.0 to * (incl.)

References