CVE-2026-98852

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

net: extend IPv6 exthdr detection of tunneled packets

Commit c4336a07eb6b (net: correctly handle tunneled traffic on IPV6_CSUM GSO fallback) split skb_gso_has_extension_hdr() into mutually exclusive branches on skb->encapsulation. This did not yet address all paths:

1. With skb->encapsulation set, the outer header is not checked. IPv6 tunnels such as ip6_gre and ip6_tunnel add an outer Destination Options header by default (encap_limit). Their GSO packets skip software GSO, then skb_csum_hwoffload_help() sees the outer extension header and calls skb_checksum_help() on the GSO skb, which warns and drops it.

2. Tunnels over IPv6 without an outer transport header, such as ip6_tunnel, leave skb->transport_header at the inner transport header. skb_network_header_len() then spans the outer IPv6, tunnel and inner IP headers, a false positive.

3. UDP tunnels without an inner network header, such as SCTP-in-UDP or PSP, have no inner IPv6 header to check. Decide on the outer header alone.

4. Directly dereferencing inner_ip_hdr(skb)->version without skb_header_pointer() is unsafe.

Instead, check ipv6_ext_hdr(nexthdr) on the outer IPv6 header and, if set, on the inner IPv6 header. Read the headers with skb_header_pointer(). Keep the skb_network_header_len() check when !skb->encapsulation to also catch encapsulated packets without skb->encapsulation (e.g., virtio).

Use the same helper in skb_csum_hwoffload_help(). Its open coded test has the false positive of (2) and ignores the inner header.

Background: checksum offload of tunneled packets invariants:

Non-GSO skb:

• If the inner packet is CHECKSUM_PARTIAL, Local Checksum Offload computes the outer checksum in software and the device offloads only the inner L4 checksum.
• If the inner packet is CHECKSUM_NONE (e.g., SCTP-in-UDP, ESP-in-UDP, Remote Checksum Offload), the device offloads the outer UDP or GRE checksum instead.

GSO skb:

• A device with NETIF_F_GSO_UDP_TUNNEL_CSUM or NETIF_F_GSO_GRE_CSUM computes both inner and outer checksums per segment. The outer checksum is seeded with only the pseudo-header checksum.

A NETIF_F_IPV6_CSUM device must parse through the outer headers to reach the inner ones.

Affected Software

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/44ba9dc568c878b699d05e7cf699572dc9df4b59
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5f0764cb1c81a9712bce605d38efe6d844a70b29
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/aa480f05aed7a9eee87d4a6fc90647fe9679c670
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/cabacdf98e09eb74599c4d97d7bd7fd659598fb7
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fdbd83c2d929ec968b37d2f75149a79440e328ff