CVE-2026-98852 PUBLISHED

net: extend IPv6 exthdr detection of tunneled packets

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 25.09.2026 Published: 18.10.2026 Updated: 18.10.2026

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

net: extend IPv6 exthdr detection of tunneled packets

Commit c4336a07eb6b ("net: correctly handle tunneled traffic on IPV6_CSUM GSO fallback") split skb_gso_has_extension_hdr() into mutually exclusive branches on skb->encapsulation. This did not yet address all paths:

  1. With skb->encapsulation set, the outer header is not checked. IPv6 tunnels such as ip6_gre and ip6_tunnel add an outer Destination Options header by default (encap_limit). Their GSO packets skip software GSO, then skb_csum_hwoffload_help() sees the outer extension header and calls skb_checksum_help() on the GSO skb, which warns and drops it.

  2. Tunnels over IPv6 without an outer transport header, such as ip6_tunnel, leave skb->transport_header at the inner transport header. skb_network_header_len() then spans the outer IPv6, tunnel and inner IP headers, a false positive.

  3. UDP tunnels without an inner network header, such as SCTP-in-UDP or PSP, have no inner IPv6 header to check. Decide on the outer header alone.

  4. Directly dereferencing inner_ip_hdr(skb)->version without skb_header_pointer() is unsafe.

Instead, check ipv6_ext_hdr(nexthdr) on the outer IPv6 header and, if set, on the inner IPv6 header. Read the headers with skb_header_pointer(). Keep the skb_network_header_len() check when !skb->encapsulation to also catch encapsulated packets without skb->encapsulation (e.g., virtio).

Use the same helper in skb_csum_hwoffload_help(). Its open coded test has the false positive of (2) and ignores the inner header.

Background: checksum offload of tunneled packets invariants:

Non-GSO skb: - If the inner packet is CHECKSUM_PARTIAL, Local Checksum Offload computes the outer checksum in software and the device offloads only the inner L4 checksum. - If the inner packet is CHECKSUM_NONE (e.g., SCTP-in-UDP, ESP-in-UDP, Remote Checksum Offload), the device offloads the outer UDP or GRE checksum instead.

GSO skb: - A device with NETIF_F_GSO_UDP_TUNNEL_CSUM or NETIF_F_GSO_GRE_CSUM computes both inner and outer checksums per segment. The outer checksum is seeded with only the pseudo-header checksum.

A NETIF_F_IPV6_CSUM device must parse through the outer headers to reach the inner ones.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 33670f780e0120c3dacda188c512bbffe0b6044c to 44ba9dc568c878b699d05e7cf699572dc9df4b59 (excl.)
  • affected from a98b78116a27e2a57b696b569b2cb431c95cf9b6 to aa480f05aed7a9eee87d4a6fc90647fe9679c670 (excl.)
  • affected from c4336a07eb6b2526dc2b62928b5104b41a7f81f5 to cabacdf98e09eb74599c4d97d7bd7fd659598fb7 (excl.)
  • affected from c4336a07eb6b2526dc2b62928b5104b41a7f81f5 to 5f0764cb1c81a9712bce605d38efe6d844a70b29 (excl.)
  • Version 2094a7cf91b71367b649f991aacc7b579f793d0b is affected
  • Version ed71cf465c75f5688b07a35d373cd1d6b589c8ea is affected
  • Version 732fdeb2987c94b439d51f5cb9addddc2fc48c42 is affected
  • affected from 6.12.81 to 6.12.113 (excl.)
  • affected from 6.18.22 to 6.18.56 (excl.)
  • affected from 6.1.168 to 6.2 (excl.)
  • affected from 6.6.134 to 6.7 (excl.)
  • affected from 6.19.12 to 6.20 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 7.0 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 7.0 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.12.113 to 6.12.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.56 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2.10 to 7.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.3-rc6 to * (incl.)

References