CVE-2026-23378: net/sched: act_ife: Fix metalist update behavior

Published Mar 25, 2026
·
Updated

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

net/sched: actife: Fix metalist update behavior

Whenever an ife action replace changes the metalist, instead of replacing the old data on the metalist, the current ife code is appending the new metadata. Aside from being innapropriate behavior, this may lead to an unbounded addition of metadata to the metalist which might cause an out of bounds error when running the encode op:

[ 138.423369][ C1] ================================================================== [ 138.424317][ C1] BUG: KASAN: slab-out-of-bounds in ifetlvmetaencode (net/ife/ife.c:168) [ 138.424906][ C1] Write of size 4 at addr ffff8880077f4ffe by task ifeoutoutbou/255 [ 138.425778][ C1] CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 255 Comm: ifeoutoutbou Not tainted 7.0.0-rc1-00169-gfbdfa8da05b6 #624 PREEMPT(full) [ 138.425795][ C1] Hardware name: Bochs Bochs, BIOS Bochs 01/01/2011 [ 138.425800][ C1] Call Trace: [ 138.425804][ C1] <IRQ> [ 138.425808][ C1] dumpstacklvl (lib/dumpstack.c:122) [ 138.425828][ C1] printreport (mm/kasan/report.c:379 mm/kasan/report.c:482) [ 138.425839][ C1] ? srsoaliasreturnthunk (arch/x86/lib/retpoline.S:221) [ 138.425844][ C1] ? virtaddrvalid (./arch/x86/include/asm/preempt.h:95 (discriminator 1) ./include/linux/rcupdate.h:975 (discriminator 1) ./include/linux/mmzone.h:2207 (discriminator 1) arch/x86/mm/physaddr.c:54 (discriminator 1)) [ 138.425853][ C1] ? ifetlvmetaencode (net/ife/ife.c:168) [ 138.425859][ C1] kasanreport (mm/kasan/report.c:221 mm/kasan/report.c:597) [ 138.425868][ C1] ? ifetlvmetaencode (net/ife/ife.c:168) [ 138.425878][ C1] kasancheckrange (mm/kasan/generic.c:186 (discriminator 1) mm/kasan/generic.c:200 (discriminator 1)) [ 138.425884][ C1] asanmemset (mm/kasan/shadow.c:84 (discriminator 2)) [ 138.425889][ C1] ifetlvmetaencode (net/ife/ife.c:168) [ 138.425893][ C1] ? ifetlvmetaencode (net/ife/ife.c:171) [ 138.425898][ C1] ? srsoaliasreturnthunk (arch/x86/lib/retpoline.S:221) [ 138.425903][ C1] ifeencodemetau16 (net/sched/actife.c:57) [ 138.425910][ C1] ? pfxdorawspinlock (kernel/locking/spinlockdebug.c:114) [ 138.425916][ C1] ? asanmemcpy (mm/kasan/shadow.c:105 (discriminator 3)) [ 138.425921][ C1] ? pfxifeencodemetau16 (net/sched/actife.c:45) [ 138.425927][ C1] ? srsoaliasreturnthunk (arch/x86/lib/retpoline.S:221) [ 138.425931][ C1] tcfifeact (net/sched/actife.c:847 net/sched/actife.c:879)

To solve this issue, fix the replace behavior by adding the metalist to the ife rcu data structure.

Affected Software

14 affected components
Linux Linux kernel
Linux Linux kernel>=4.15.1<6.1.167
Linux Linux kernel>=6.2<6.6.130
Linux Linux kernel>=6.7<6.12.77
Linux Linux kernel>=6.13<6.18.17
Linux Linux kernel>=6.19<6.19.7
Linux Linux kernel=4.15
Linux Linux kernel=7.0-rc1
Linux Linux kernel=7.0-rc2
Linux Linux kernel=7.0-rc3
Linux Linux kernel=7.0-rc4
Linux Linux kernel=7.0-rc5
Linux Linux kernel=7.0-rc6
Linux Linux kernel=7.0-rc7

Event History

Mar 25, 2026
CVE Published
via MITRE·10:27 AM
Data Sourced
via MITRE·10:27 AM
DescriptionSeverity
Data Sourced
via NVD·11:16 AM
RemedyDescriptionSeverityWeaknessAffected Software

Frequently Asked Questions

1

What is the severity of CVE-2026-23378?

CVE-2026-23378 has been classified as a medium severity vulnerability due to its impact on the Linux kernel's scheduling behavior.

2

How do I fix CVE-2026-23378?

To fix CVE-2026-23378, update to a patched version of the Linux kernel that resolves the metalist update behavior issue.

3

What is the impact of CVE-2026-23378?

CVE-2026-23378 could potentially lead to incorrect scheduling decisions in the Linux kernel, affecting system performance.

4

Is CVE-2026-23378 present in older Linux kernel versions?

Yes, CVE-2026-23378 affects older Linux kernel versions prior to the implementation of the fix.

5

Who should be concerned about CVE-2026-23378?

System administrators and users running affected versions of the Linux kernel should be concerned about CVE-2026-23378.

Contact

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