net: dsa: avoid suspicious RCU usage for synced VLAN-aware MAC addresses
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Adjacent network
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- High
- Impact type
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- High · High · High
- Fix status
- Partial Red Hat: 1 without a fix
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat.
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: dsa: avoid suspicious RCU usage for synced VLAN-aware MAC addresses When using the felix driver (the only one which supports UC filtering and MC filtering) as a DSA master for a random other DSA switch, one can see the following stack trace when the downstream switch ports join a VLAN-aware bridge: ============================= WARNING: suspicious RCU usage ----------------------------- net/8021q/vlan_core.c:238 suspicious rcu_dereference_protected() usage! stack backtrace: Workqueue: dsa_ordered dsa_slave_switchdev_event_work Call trace: lockdep_rcu_suspicious+0x170/0x210 vlan_for_each+0x8c/0x188 dsa_slave_sync_uc+0x128/0x178 __hw_addr_sync_dev+0x138/0x158 dsa_slave_set_rx_mode+0x58/0x70 __dev_set_rx_mode+0x88/0xa8 dev_uc_add+0x74/0xa0 dsa_port_bridge_host_fdb_add+0xec/0x180 dsa_slave_switchdev_event_work+0x7c/0x1c8 process_one_work+0x290/0x568 What it's saying is that vlan_for_each() expects rtnl_lock() context and it's not getting it, when it's called from the DSA master's ndo_set_rx_mode(). The caller of that - dsa_slave_set_rx_mode() - is the slave DSA interface's dsa_port_bridge_host_fdb_add() which comes from the deferred dsa_slave_switchdev_event_work(). We went to great lengths to avoid the rtnl_lock() context in that call path in commit 0faf890fc519 ("net: dsa: drop rtnl_lock from dsa_slave_switchdev_event_work"), and calling rtnl_lock() is simply not an option due to the possibility of deadlocking when calling dsa_flush_workqueue() from the call paths that do hold rtnl_lock() - basically all of them. So, when the DSA master calls vlan_for_each() from its ndo_set_rx_mode(), the state of the 8021q driver on this device is really not protected from concurrent access by anything. Looking at net/8021q/, I don't think that vlan_info->vid_list was particularly designed with RCU traversal in mind, so introducing an RCU read-side form of vlan_for_each() - vlan_for_each_rcu() - won't be so easy, and it also wouldn't be exactly what we need anyway. In general I believe that the solution isn't in net/8021q/ anyway; vlan_for_each() is not cut out for this task. DSA doesn't need rtnl_lock() to be held per se - since it's not a netdev state change that we're blocking, but rather, just concurrent additions/removals to a VLAN list. We don't even need sleepable context - the callback of vlan_for_each() just schedules deferred work. The proposed escape is to remove the dependency on vlan_for_each() and to open-code a non-sleepable, rtnl-free alternative to that, based on copies of the VLAN list modified from .ndo_vlan_rx_add_vid() and .ndo_vlan_rx_kill_vid().
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
Not available: CISA has not published SSVC decision points for this record.
Affected products
Remediation
- Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 6.3
- Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 6.3.13, 6.4.4, 6.5
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Low. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
| Product | Status | Plan or fix |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
Not affected: 4 products
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2023-54149
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-4vh9-h9jw-r347
References
More Linux vulnerabilities
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Sources
- CVE-2023-54149 · CVE Program
- CVE-2023-54149 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-4vh9-h9jw-r347 · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2023-54149 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
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