CVE Feed

    Dashboard / CVE / CVE-2021-47546

    CVE-2021-47546

    In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ipv6: fix memory leak in fib6_rule_suppress The kernel leaks memory when a `fib` rule is present in IPv6 nftables firewall rules and a suppress_prefix rule is present in the IPv6 routing rules (used by certain tools such as wg-quick). In such scenarios, every incoming packet will leak an allocation in `ip6_dst_cache` slab cache. After some hours of `bpftrace`-ing and source code reading, I tracked down the issue to ca7a03c41753 ("ipv6: do not free rt if FIB_LOOKUP_NOREF is set on suppress rule"). The problem with that change is that the generic `args->flags` always have `FIB_LOOKUP_NOREF` set[1][2] but the IPv6-specific flag `RT6_LOOKUP_F_DST_NOREF` might not be, leading to `fib6_rule_suppress` not decreasing the refcount when needed. How to reproduce: - Add the following nftables rule to a prerouting chain: meta nfproto ipv6 fib saddr . mark . iif oif missing drop This can be done with: sudo nft create table inet test sudo nft create chain inet test test_chain '{ type filter hook prerouting priority filter + 10; policy accept; }' sudo nft add rule inet test test_chain meta nfproto ipv6 fib saddr . mark . iif oif missing drop - Run: sudo ip -6 rule add table main suppress_prefixlength 0 - Watch `sudo slabtop -o | grep ip6_dst_cache` to see memory usage increase with every incoming ipv6 packet. This patch exposes the protocol-specific flags to the protocol specific `suppress` function, and check the protocol-specific `flags` argument for RT6_LOOKUP_F_DST_NOREF instead of the generic FIB_LOOKUP_NOREF when decreasing the refcount, like this. [1]: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/ca7a03c4175366a92cee0ccc4fec0038c3266e26/net/ipv6/fib6_rules.c#L71 [2]: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/ca7a03c4175366a92cee0ccc4fec0038c3266e26/net/ipv6/fib6_rules.c#L99

    Published:May 24, 2024
    Last Modified:May 4, 2025
    EPS:May 24, 2024
    EPSS Score:0.00009
    CVSS Score:5.5

    Affected Products

    Vendor
    Linux
    Product
    Linux Kernel

    Exploits

    No exploit reference

    Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)

    No CAPEC recorded yet

    Related CVEs

    Common Vulnerability Scoring System

    Attack Vector
    Network
    Adjacent
    Local
    Physical
    Privileges Required
    None
    Low
    High
    User Interaction
    None
    Required
    Scope
    Unchanged
    Changed
    Confidentiality
    None
    Low
    High
    Integrity
    None
    Low
    High
    Availability
    None
    Low
    High