CVE-2025-22111

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

net: Remove RTNL dance for SIOCBRADDIF and SIOCBRDELIF.

SIOCBRDELIF is passed to dev_ioctl() first and later forwarded to br_ioctl_call(), which causes unnecessary RTNL dance and the splat below [0] under RTNL pressure.

Lets say Thread A is trying to detach a device from a bridge and Thread B is trying to remove the bridge.

In dev_ioctl(), Thread A bumps the bridge devices refcnt by netdev_hold() and releases RTNL because the following br_ioctl_call() also re-acquires RTNL.

In the race window, Thread B could acquire RTNL and try to remove the bridge device. Then, rtnl_unlock() by Thread B will release RTNL and wait for netdev_put() by Thread A.

Thread A, however, must hold RTNL after the unlock in dev_ifsioc(), which may take long under RTNL pressure, resulting in the splat by Thread B.

Thread A (SIOCBRDELIF) Thread B (SIOCBRDELBR)

sock_ioctl sock_ioctl - sock_do_ioctl - br_ioctl_call - dev_ioctl - br_ioctl_stub |- rtnl_lock | |- dev_ifsioc
|- dev = __dev_get_by_name(…) |- netdev_hold(dev, …) . / |- rtnl_unlock ——. | | |- br_ioctl_call ---> |- rtnl_lock Race | | - br_ioctl_stub |- br_del_bridge Window | | | |- dev = __dev_get_by_name(…) | | | May take long | - br_dev_delete(dev, ...) | | | under RTNL pressure | - unregister_netdevice_queue(dev, …) | | | | - rtnl_unlock | |- rtnl_lock <- - netdev_run_todo | |- … - netdev_run_todo | - rtnl_unlock |- __rtnl_unlock | |- netdev_wait_allrefs_any |- netdev_put(dev, …) <—————- Wait refcnt decrement and log splat below

To avoid blocking SIOCBRDELBR unnecessarily, lets not call dev_ioctl() for SIOCBRADDIF and SIOCBRDELIF.

In the dev_ioctl() path, we do the following:

1. Copy struct ifreq by get_user_ifreq in sock_do_ioctl()

2. Check CAP_NET_ADMIN in dev_ioctl()

3. Call dev_load() in dev_ioctl()

4. Fetch the master dev from ifr.ifr_name in dev_ifsioc()

5. can be done by request_module() in br_ioctl_call(), so we move 1., 2., and 4. to br_ioctl_stub().

Note that 2. is also checked later in add_del_if(), but its better performed before RTNL.

SIOCBRADDIF and SIOCBRDELIF have been processed in dev_ioctl() since the pre-git era, and there seems to be no specific reason to process them there.

[0]: unregister_netdevice: waiting for wpan3 to become free. Usage count = 2 ref_tracker: wpan3@ffff8880662d8608 has 1/1 users at __netdev_tracker_alloc include/linux/netdevice.h:4282 [inline] netdev_hold include/linux/netdevice.h:4311 [inline] dev_ifsioc+0xc6a/0x1160 net/core/dev_ioctl.c:624 dev_ioctl+0x255/0x10c0 net/core/dev_ioctl.c:826 sock_do_ioctl+0x1ca/0x260 net/socket.c:1213 sock_ioctl+0x23a/0x6c0 net/socket.c:1318 vfs_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:51 [inline] __do_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:906 [inline] __se_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:892 [inline] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x1a4/0x210 fs/ioctl.c:892 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:52 [inline] do_syscall_64+0xcb/0x250 arch/x86/entry/common.c:83 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f

Affected Software

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/00fe0ac64efd1f5373b3dd9f1f84b19235371e39
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/338a0f3c66aef4ee13052880d02200aae8f2d8a8
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4888e1dcc341e9a132ef7b8516234b3c3296de56
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d767ce15045df510f55cdd2af5df0eee71f928d0
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ed3ba9b6e280e14cc3148c1b226ba453f02fa76c
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f51e471cb1577d510c3096e126678e1ea20d2efd