CVEvulnerability
CVE-2026-23143
5.5 MEDIUM
Official page ↗
- Status
- Modified
- Published
- 2026-02-14
- Last modified
- 2026-10-21
- Assigner
- 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
- CVSS 3.1 ([email protected])
- 5.5 MEDIUM — CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
virtio_net: Fix misalignment bug in struct virtnet_info
Use the new TRAILING_OVERLAP() helper to fix a misalignment bug
along with the following warning:
drivers/net/virtio_net.c:429:46: warning: structure containing a flexible array member is not at the end of another structure [-Wflex-array-member-not-at-end]
This helper creates a union between a flexible-array member (FAM)
and a set of members that would otherwise follow it (in this case
`u8 rss_hash_key_data[VIRTIO_NET_RSS_MAX_KEY_SIZE];`). This
overlays the trailing members (rss_hash_key_data) onto the FAM
(hash_key_data) while keeping the FAM and the start of MEMBERS aligned.
The static_assert() ensures this alignment remains.
Notice that due to tail padding in flexible `struct
virtio_net_rss_config_trailer`, `rss_trailer.hash_key_data`
(at offset 83 in struct virtnet_info) and `rss_hash_key_data` (at
offset 84 in struct virtnet_info) are misaligned by one byte. See
below:
struct virtio_net_rss_config_trailer {
__le16 max_tx_vq; /* 0 2 */
__u8 hash_key_length; /* 2 1 */
__u8 hash_key_data[]; /* 3 0 */
/* size: 4, cachelines: 1, members: 3 */
/* padding: 1 */
/* last cacheline: 4 bytes */
};
struct virtnet_info {
...
struct virtio_net_rss_config_trailer rss_trailer; /* 80 4 */
/* XXX last struct has 1 byte of padding */
u8 rss_hash_key_data[40]; /* 84 40 */
...
/* size: 832, cachelines: 13, members: 48 */
/* sum members: 801, holes: 8, sum holes: 31 */
/* paddings: 2, sum paddings: 5 */
};
After changes, those members are correctly aligned at offset 795:
struct virtnet_info {
...
union {
struct virtio_net_rss_config_trailer rss_trailer; /* 792 4 */
struct {
unsigned char __offset_to_hash_key_data[3]; /* 792 3 */
u8 rss_hash_key_data[40]; /* 795 40 */
}; /* 792 43 */
}; /* 792 44 */
...
/* size: 840, cachelines: 14, members: 47 */
/* sum members: 801, holes: 8, sum holes: 35 */
/* padding: 4 */
/* paddings: 1, sum paddings: 4 */
/* last cacheline: 8 bytes */
};
As a result, the RSS key passed to the device is shifted by 1
byte: the last byte is cut off, and instead a (possibly
uninitialized) byte is added at the beginning.
As a last note `struct virtio_net_rss_config_hdr *rss_hdr;` is also
moved to the end, since it seems those three members should stick
around together. :)
Affected configurations
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.15 < 6.18.7)
• linux linux kernel 6.19