CVE-2024-57974: udp: Deal with race between UDP socket address change and rehash

Published Feb 27, 2025
·
Updated

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

udp: Deal with race between UDP socket address change and rehash

If a UDP socket changes its local address while it's receiving datagrams, as a result of connect(), there is a period during which a lookup operation might fail to find it, after the address is changed but before the secondary hash (port and address) and the four-tuple hash (local and remote ports and addresses) are updated.

Secondary hash chains were introduced by commit 30fff9231fad ("udp: bind() optimisation") and, as a result, a rehash operation became needed to make a bound socket reachable again after a connect().

This operation was introduced by commit 719f835853a9 ("udp: add rehash on connect()") which isn't however a complete fix: the socket will be found once the rehashing completes, but not while it's pending.

This is noticeable with a socat(1) server in UDP4-LISTEN mode, and a client sending datagrams to it. After the server receives the first datagram (cf. xioopenipdgramlisten()), it issues a connect() to the address of the sender, in order to set up a directed flow.

Now, if the client, running on a different CPU thread, happens to send a (subsequent) datagram while the server's socket changes its address, but is not rehashed yet, this will result in a failed lookup and a port unreachable error delivered to the client, as apparent from the following reproducer:

LEN=$(($(cat /proc/sys/net/core/wmemdefault) / 4)) dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1 count=${LEN} of=tmp.in

while :; do taskset -c 1 socat UDP4-LISTEN:1337,null-eof OPEN:tmp.out,create,trunc & sleep 0.1 || sleep 1 taskset -c 2 socat OPEN:tmp.in UDP4:localhost:1337,shut-null wait done

where the client will eventually get ECONNREFUSED on a write() (typically the second or third one of a given iteration):

2024/11/13 21:28:23 socat[46901] E write(6, 0x556db2e3c000, 8192): Connection refused

This issue was first observed as a seldom failure in Podman's tests checking UDP functionality while using pasta(1) to connect the container's network namespace, which leads us to a reproducer with the lookup error resulting in an ICMP packet on a tap device:

LOCALADDR="$(ip -j -4 addr show|jq -rM '.[] | .addrinfo[0] | select(.scope == "global").local')"

while :; do ./pasta --config-net -p pasta.pcap -u 1337 socat UDP4-LISTEN:1337,null-eof OPEN:tmp.out,create,trunc & sleep 0.2 || sleep 1 socat OPEN:tmp.in UDP4:${LOCALADDR}:1337,shut-null wait cmp tmp.in tmp.out done

Once this fails:

tmp.in tmp.out differ: char 8193, line 29

we can finally have a look at what's going on:

$ tshark -r pasta.pcap 1 0.000000 :: ? ff02::16 ICMPv6 110 Multicast Listener Report Message v2 2 0.168690 88.198.0.161 ? 88.198.0.164 UDP 8234 60260 ? 1337 Len=8192 3 0.168767 88.198.0.161 ? 88.198.0.164 UDP 8234 60260 ? 1337 Len=8192 4 0.168806 88.198.0.161 ? 88.198.0.164 UDP 8234 60260 ? 1337 Len=8192 5 0.168827 c6:47:05:8d:dc:04 ? Broadcast ARP 42 Who has 88.198.0.161? Tell 88.198.0.164 6 0.168851 9a:55:9a:55:9a:55 ? c6:47:05:8d:dc:04 ARP 42 88.198.0.161 is at 9a:55:9a:55:9a:55 7 0.168875 88.198.0.161 ? 88.198.0.164 UDP 8234 60260 ? 1337 Len=8192 8 0.168896 88.198.0.164 ? 88.198.0.161 ICMP 590 Destination unreachable (Port unreachable) 9 0.168926 88.198.0.161 ? 88.198.0.164 UDP 8234 60260 ? 1337 Len=8192 10 0.168959 88.198.0.161 ? 88.198.0.164 UDP 8234 60260 ? 1337 Len=8192 11 0.168989 88.198.0.161 ? 88.198.0.164 UDP 4138 60260 ? 1337 Len=4096 12 0.169010 88.198.0.161 ? 88.198.0.164 UDP 42 60260 ? 1337 Len=0

On the third datagram received, the network namespace of the container initiates an ARP lookup to deliver the ICMP message.

In another variant of this reproducer, starting the client with:

strace -f pasta --config-net -u 1337 socat UDP4-LISTEN:1337,null-eof OPEN:tmp.out,create,tru ---truncated---

Affected Software

8 affected components
Linux Linux kernel
Linux Linux kernel>=2.6.33<6.12.13
Linux Linux kernel>=6.13<6.13.2
Microsoft azl3 kernel 6.6.117.1-1
Microsoft cbl2 kernel 5.15.186.1-1
Microsoft azl3 kernel 6.6.104.2-4
Microsoft azl3 kernel 6.6.112.1-2
Microsoft azl3 kernel 6.6.119.3-1

Event History

Feb 27, 2025
CVE Published
via MITRE·02:07 AM
Data Sourced
via MITRE·02:07 AM
Description
Data Sourced
via NVD·02:15 AM
RemedyDescriptionSeverityWeaknessAffected Software
Sep 3, 2025
Data Sourced
via Microsoft·10:31 PM
DescriptionSeverityWeaknessAffected Software

Frequently Asked Questions

1

What is the severity of CVE-2024-57974?

CVE-2024-57974 has a moderate severity rating due to the potential for race conditions in UDP socket address changes.

2

How do I fix CVE-2024-57974?

To fix CVE-2024-57974, update your Linux kernel to a version that includes the patch for this vulnerability.

3

Which versions of the Linux kernel are affected by CVE-2024-57974?

CVE-2024-57974 affects Linux kernel versions from 2.6.33 up to 6.12.13 and from 6.13 to 6.13.2.

4

What components are exploited in CVE-2024-57974?

CVE-2024-57974 exploits the race condition that occurs between UDP socket address changes and datagram reception.

5

Is CVE-2024-57974 specific to any Linux distribution?

CVE-2024-57974 is associated with the Linux kernel and can impact various distributions that utilize affected kernel versions.

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