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Message-ID: <6d508d6a-6d4f-4b78-96e0-65e5dfe4e8f0@oracle.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 20:31:57 +0530
From: ALOK TIWARI <alok.a.tiwari@...cle.com>
To: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@...gle.com>, Aditya Gupta <adityag@...ux.ibm.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, netdev@...r.kernel.org,
        "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
        Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>, Paolo Abeni <pabeni@...hat.com>
Subject: Re: [External] : Re: [REPORT] Null pointer deref in net/core/dev.c on
 PowerPC



On 12/17/2025 8:11 PM, Eric Dumazet wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 2:58 PM Eric Dumazet <edumazet@...gle.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 2:49 PM Eric Dumazet <edumazet@...gle.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 1:10 PM Aditya Gupta <adityag@...ux.ibm.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> I see a null pointer dereference in 'net/core/dev.c', with 6.19.0-rc1,
>>>> when using e1000e device in qemu.
>>>>
>>>> I am able to reproduce the issue on PowerNV and PSeries machines on Power
>>>> architecture, though this might be possible on other architectures also.
>>>>
>>>> Console log
>>>> -----------
>>>>
>>>>          ...
>>>>          Starting network: udhcpc: started, v1.35.0
>>>>          udhcpc: broadcasting discover
>>>>          [    6.389648] Kernel attempted to read user page (0) - exploit attempt? (uid: 0)
>>>>          [    6.394166] BUG: Kernel NULL pointer dereference on read at 0x00000000
>>>>          [    6.394262] Faulting instruction address: 0xc00000000166e080
>>>>          [    6.395253] Oops: Kernel access of bad area, sig: 11 [#1]
>>>>          [    6.398372] LE PAGE_SIZE=64K MMU=Radix  SMP NR_CPUS=2048 NUMA pSeries
>>>>          [    6.398647] Modules linked in:
>>>>          [    6.399553] CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 203 Comm: udhcpc Not tainted 6.19.0-rc1+ #3 PREEMPT(voluntary)
>>>>          [    6.399757] Hardware name: IBM pSeries (emulated by qemu) POWER9 (architected) 0x4e1202 0xf000005 of:SLOF,git-6b6c16 pSeries
>>>>          [    6.400002] NIP:  c00000000166e080 LR: c00000000166e080 CTR: 0000000000000000
>>>>          [    6.400148] REGS: c00000000c67b4f0 TRAP: 0300   Not tainted  (6.19.0-rc1+)
>>>>          [    6.400275] MSR:  8000000000009033 <SF,EE,ME,IR,DR,RI,LE>  CR: 44022860  XER: 20040147
>>>>          [    6.400544] CFAR: c00000000165ef0c DAR: 0000000000000000 DSISR: 40000000 IRQMASK: 0
>>>>          [    6.400544] GPR00: c00000000166e080 c00000000c67b790 c0000000028ca300 0000000000000002
>>>>          [    6.400544] GPR04: c00000000324a568 000000000001a560 0000000000000020 0000000000000000
>>>>          [    6.400544] GPR08: 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000201 0000000028022862
>>>>          [    6.400544] GPR12: 0000000000000001 c0000000041a0000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000
>>>>          [    6.400544] GPR16: 0000000000000000 0000000000000010 0000000000000148 0000000000000148
>>>>          [    6.400544] GPR20: 0000000000000000 0000000000000008 00000000000005dc c000000003ea5e98
>>>>          [    6.400544] GPR24: c000000003ea5e94 0000000000000000 c000000005b7e200 0000000000000001
>>>>          [    6.400544] GPR28: 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 c000000003ea5d80
>>>>          [    6.401178] NIP [c00000000166e080] __dev_xmit_skb+0x484/0xb88
>>>>          [    6.401697] LR [c00000000166e080] __dev_xmit_skb+0x484/0xb88
>>>>          [    6.401843] Call Trace:
>>>>          [    6.401938] [c00000000c67b790] [c00000000166e080] __dev_xmit_skb+0x484/0xb88 (unreliable)
>>>>          [    6.402060] [c00000000c67b810] [c0000000016738a4] __dev_queue_xmit+0x4b4/0xa94
>>>>          [    6.402122] [c00000000c67b970] [c00000000192748c] packet_xmit+0x10c/0x1b0
>>>>          [    6.402190] [c00000000c67b9f0] [c00000000192af6c] packet_snd+0x784/0xa04
>>>>          [    6.402278] [c00000000c67bad0] [c00000000162a91c] __sys_sendto+0x1dc/0x250
>>>>          [    6.402340] [c00000000c67bc20] [c00000000162a9c4] sys_sendto+0x34/0x44
>>>>          [    6.402400] [c00000000c67bc40] [c000000000031870] system_call_exception+0x170/0x360
>>>>          [    6.402468] [c00000000c67be50] [c00000000000cedc] system_call_vectored_common+0x15c/0x2ec
>>>>          ...
>>>>
>>>> Git Blame
>>>> ---------
>>>>
>>>> Debugging with GDB points to this code in 'net/core/dev.c':
>>>>
>>>>          static inline int __dev_xmit_skb(struct sk_buff *skb, struct Qdisc *q,
>>>>                                           struct net_device *dev,
>>>>                                           struct netdev_queue *txq)
>>>>          {
>>>>          ...
>>>>                          llist_for_each_entry_safe(skb, next, ll_list, ll_node) {
>>>>                                  prefetch(next);
>>>>                                  prefetch(&next->priority);                                              <----------
>>>>                                  skb_mark_not_on_list(skb);
>>>>                                  rc = dev_qdisc_enqueue(skb, q, &to_free, txq);
>>>>                                  count++;
>>>>                          }
>>>>
>>>> Git blame points to this commit which introduced the use of 'next->priority':
>>>>
>>>>          commit b2e9821cff6c3c9ac107fce5327070f4462bf8a7
>>>>          Date:   Fri Nov 21 08:32:52 2025 +0000
>>>>
>>>>              net: prefech skb->priority in __dev_xmit_skb()
>>>>
>>>> Reproducing the issue
>>>> ---------------------
>>>>
>>>> To reproduce the issue:
>>>> 1. Attaching config as attachment
>>>> 2. Kernel commit I built: 'commit 40fbbd64bba6 ("Merge tag 'pull-fixes' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs")'
>>>> 3. Initramfs (it's buildroot): https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://ibm.box.com/s/x70ducx9cxl9tz4abh97d9b508ildync__;!!ACWV5N9M2RV99hQ!JFK4bRaMJqtwI1HPrt0RUtQ-Ti5RfIOMf_XvhccLjHCtWhOgpn4WF1qglGxo1Z0nXM_TcGB7PehRPosqE_4L$
>>>> 4. QEMU command line: 'qemu-system-ppc64 -M pseries -m 10G -kernel ~/some-path/zImage -append "init=/bin/sh noreboot debug" -nographic -initrd ~/some-path/rootfs-with-ssh.cpio -netdev user,id=net0 -device e1000e,netdev=net0
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> - Aditya G
>>>>
>>>
>>> This seems to be a platform issue.
>>>
>>> prefetch(NULL) (or prefetch (amount < PAGE_SIZE)) is not supposed to fault.
>>
>> Special casing of NULL was added in :
>>
>> commit e63f8f439de010b6227c0c9c6f56e2c44dbe5dae
>> Author: Olof Johansson <olof@...tin.ibm.com>
>> Date:   Sat Apr 16 15:24:38 2005 -0700
>>
>>      [PATCH] ppc64: no prefetch for NULL pointers
> 
> I will send the following fix, thanks.
> 
> diff --git a/net/core/dev.c b/net/core/dev.c
> index 9094c0fb8c68..36dc5199037e 100644
> --- a/net/core/dev.c
> +++ b/net/core/dev.c
> @@ -4241,9 +4241,11 @@ static inline int __dev_xmit_skb(struct sk_buff
> *skb, struct Qdisc *q,
>                  int count = 0;
> 
>                  llist_for_each_entry_safe(skb, next, ll_list, ll_node) {
> -                       prefetch(next);
> -                       prefetch(&next->priority);
> -                       skb_mark_not_on_list(skb);
> +                       if (next) {
> +                               prefetch(next);
> +                               prefetch(&next->priority);
> +                               skb_mark_not_on_list(skb);
> +                       }
>                          rc = dev_qdisc_enqueue(skb, q, &to_free, txq);
>                          count++;
>                  }
> 

why not only ?
if (likely(next)) {
     prefetch(next);
     prefetch(&next->priority);
}

Thanks,
Alok



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