CVE-2026-98610

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

net/sched: sch_hfsc: bound the classify inner-filter walk with a drift budget

hfsc_classify() applies the filter may only point downwards level check only when the filter result carries no bound class. A filter created with a flowid gets res.class set once at bind time, so the check never runs for it during classification. hfsc_adjust_levels() can later raise a classs level without revalidating existing bindings, leaving two binds that were each legal at bind time pointing at each other; the classify walk then bounces between two interior classes forever with the qdisc lock held and BH disabled — a soft lockup from a single packet. The stuck walk trips the watchdog:

watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#3 stuck for 13s! [ping:444] RIP: 0010:u32_classify+0x542/0x17f0 … tcf_classify+0x66/0xa0 hfsc_enqueue+0x166/0xdf0

Bound the traversal with a budget of non-descending hops, the only way a configured walk can move without descending the class tree once levels drift after bind time. The budget is cumulative over the whole walk and is deliberately not reset on a descending hop: a chain that alternates a descent with a lateral hop would return the budget every lap and never trip. Descending hops never decrement it, so legitimately deep trees are unaffected and a terminating lateral chain still classifies normally. Drop the packet with a rate-limited warning once the budget is exhausted, mirroring the merged HTB fix.

This is a follow-up to commit 729c4896ab82 (net/sched: sch_htb: limit htb_classify inner-class filter hops), which bounded the same classify loop on the HTB side but left the HFSC walk unbounded.

Conditions to recreate the bug:

• CONFIG_NET_SCHED, CONFIG_NET_SCH_HFSC, CONFIG_NET_CLS_U32, CONFIG_LOCKUP_DETECTOR.
• Build a cycle with two legal-at-bind-time flowid binds and a level drift: class X 1:1 (child of root) with leaf child 1:10; class Y 1:2 (sibling of X) with children 1:20 and 1:200; root u32 filter flowid 1:1; filter on X flowid 1:2 (legal when Y is a leaf); after Ys level rises to 2, filter on Y flowid 1:1 (legal then). Send one packet (ping on the device). Unfixed kernel: classify spins with the qdisc lock held; with softlockup_panic=1 it panics.
• Reachable from unprivileged user via unshare -Urn (CAP_NET_ADMIN).

Affected Software

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0fa25ba50a382d79c0cf060214c2095756836f5f
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1301a1292c6742b4c96a18715d49f89c3caca0d7
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2bd20245dd658789d8cccb37697967b4caba6ad8
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/30d7fea767e830bd81ac2f73d2e33c877cb2e679
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8a60ade2277e1f0e0d0578d565354e52292fa46d
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d4fd251e3311727c32af89344d3332f788c153a2
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e8f9979286f70dfbfe0552e2a63000950841bea6
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f476fb656ca2326d7b2eba98d03ced1cbcf5cd99