CVE-2026-99074 — ipv4: stop PMTU walk when nexthop group shrinks

Affected: Linux

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

ipv4: stop PMTU walk when nexthop group shrinks

Commit 7d3f3b4367f3 ("net: ipv4: Cache pmtu for all packet paths if multipath enabled") made __ip_rt_update_pmtu() update every path.

For nexthop objects, fib_info_num_path() and fib_info_nhc() independently load nh->nh_grp. RCU protects each group's lifetime but does not make the loads observe the same group. If replacement shrinks the group after the loop accepts an index, fib_info_nhc() returns NULL and update_or_create_fnhe() dereferences it.

A deterministic probe only widened the existing window between the real operations. On v7.2, an RTM_NEWNEXTHOP replacement published a one-member group after the PMTU reader accepted index 1 from a two-member group, producing:

KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000000007] RIP: update_or_create_fnhe+0x45/0x15b0

Stop when the indexed path is absent. Groups are dense, so no later index exists in that snapshot. The same real-writer window completed 114,423 PMTU iterations without an oops with this check. A reproducer is available on request.

Replacement requires CAP_NET_ADMIN in the network namespace. Where unprivileged user namespaces are permitted, a local user can obtain it in a new user and network namespace.

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CVE-2026-99074 — ipv4: stop PMTU walk when nexthop group shrinks