CVE-2026-98596 — ipv6: Fix dst leak for uncached routes.

Affected: Linux

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

ipv6: Fix dst leak for uncached routes.

ip6_route_output_flags(), ip6_rt_put_flags(), and ip6_dst_check() detect an uncached route by list_empty(&rt->dst.rt_uncached), which replaced the static DST_NOCACHE flag check in commit a4c2fd7f7891 ("net: remove DST_NOCACHE flag").

When a device is unregistered, rt6_uncached_list_flush_dev() unlinks uncached routes tied to the device from rt6_uncached_list.

Previously, they were moved to another list with list_move() (__list_del_entry() + list_add()), and since commit 98aa546af5e4 ("inet: remove (struct uncached_list)->quarantine"), the routes are just unlinked with list_del_init().

If list_del_init() runs concurrently, list_empty() evaluates to true; ip6_route_output_flags() calls dst_hold_safe() incorrectly and ip6_rt_put_flags() skips ip6_rt_put(), leaking dst, and thus dev tied via rt->from as well.

The same race is partially fixed by commit 9a6f0c4d5796 ("dst: fix races in rt6_uncached_list_del() and rt_del_uncached_list()").

Let's check rt6->dst.rt_uncached_list instead.

Note that IPv4 does not have the same issue.

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CVE-2026-98596 — ipv6: Fix dst leak for uncached routes.