CVE-2025-38165

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

bpf, sockmap: Fix panic when calling skb_linearize

The panic can be reproduced by executing the command: ./bench sockmap -c 2 -p 1 -a –rx-verdict-ingress –rx-strp 100000

Then a kernel panic was captured:

[ 657.460555] kernel BUG at net/core/skbuff.c:2178! [ 657.462680] Tainted: [W]=WARN [ 657.463287] Workqueue: events sk_psock_backlog … [ 657.469610] [ 657.469738] ? die+0x36/0x90 [ 657.469916] ? do_trap+0x1d0/0x270 [ 657.470118] ? pskb_expand_head+0x612/0xf40 [ 657.470376] ? pskb_expand_head+0x612/0xf40 [ 657.470620] ? do_error_trap+0xa3/0x170 [ 657.470846] ? pskb_expand_head+0x612/0xf40 [ 657.471092] ? handle_invalid_op+0x2c/0x40 [ 657.471335] ? pskb_expand_head+0x612/0xf40 [ 657.471579] ? exc_invalid_op+0x2d/0x40 [ 657.471805] ? asm_exc_invalid_op+0x1a/0x20 [ 657.472052] ? pskb_expand_head+0xd1/0xf40 [ 657.472292] ? pskb_expand_head+0x612/0xf40 [ 657.472540] ? lock_acquire+0x18f/0x4e0 [ 657.472766] ? find_held_lock+0x2d/0x110 [ 657.472999] ? __pfx_pskb_expand_head+0x10/0x10 [ 657.473263] ? __kmalloc_cache_noprof+0x5b/0x470 [ 657.473537] ? __pfx___lock_release.isra.0+0x10/0x10 [ 657.473826] __pskb_pull_tail+0xfd/0x1d20 [ 657.474062] ? __kasan_slab_alloc+0x4e/0x90 [ 657.474707] sk_psock_skb_ingress_enqueue+0x3bf/0x510 [ 657.475392] ? __kasan_kmalloc+0xaa/0xb0 [ 657.476010] sk_psock_backlog+0x5cf/0xd70 [ 657.476637] process_one_work+0x858/0x1a20

The panic originates from the assertion BUG_ON(skb_shared(skb)) in skb_linearize(). A previous commit(see Fixes tag) introduced skb_get() to avoid race conditions between skb operations in the backlog and skb release in the recvmsg path. However, this caused the panic to always occur when skb_linearize is executed.

The –rx-strp 100000 parameter forces the RX path to use the strparser module which aggregates data until it reaches 100KB before calling sockmap logic. The 100KB payload exceeds MAX_MSG_FRAGS, triggering skb_linearize.

To fix this issue, just move skb_get into sk_psock_skb_ingress_enqueue.

sk_psock_backlog: sk_psock_handle_skb skb_get(skb) <== we move it into sk_psock_skb_ingress_enqueue sk_psock_skb_ingress____________ ↓ | | → sk_psock_skb_ingress_self | sk_psock_skb_ingress_enqueue sk_psock_verdict_apply_________________↑ skb_linearize

Note that for verdict_apply path, the skb_get operation is unnecessary so we add take_ref param to control its behavior.

Weakness

The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, making the memory unavailable for reallocation and reuse.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• Choose a language or tool that provides automatic memory management, or makes manual memory management less error-prone.
• For example, glibc in Linux provides protection against free of invalid pointers.
• When using Xcode to target OS X or iOS, enable automatic reference counting (ARC) [REF-391].
• To help correctly and consistently manage memory when programming in C++, consider using a smart pointer class such as std::auto_ptr (defined by ISO/IEC ISO/IEC 14882:2003), std::shared_ptr and std::unique_ptr (specified by an upcoming revision of the C++ standard, informally referred to as C++ 1x), or equivalent solutions such as Boost.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3d25fa2d7f127348c818e1dab9e58534f7ac56cc
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4dba44333a11522df54b49aa1f2edfaf6ce35fc7
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5ca2e29f6834c64c0e5a9ccf1278c21fb49b827e
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9718ba6490732dbe70190d42c21deb1440834402
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/db1d15a26f21f97459508c42ae87cabe8d3afc3b
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e9c1299d813fc04668042690f2c3cc76d013959a
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/10/msg00008.html