CVE-2025-38476 – Linux kernel RPL Use-after-free Vulnerability

The following table lists the changes that have been made to the
CVE-2025-38476 vulnerability over time.

Vulnerability history details can be useful for understanding the evolution
of a vulnerability, and for identifying the most recent changes that may
impact the vulnerability’s severity, exploitability, or other characteristics.

  • New CVE Received
    by 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

    Jul. 28, 2025

    Action Type Old Value New Value
    Added Description In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

    rpl: Fix use-after-free in rpl_do_srh_inline().

    Running lwt_dst_cache_ref_loop.sh in selftest with KASAN triggers
    the splat below [0].

    rpl_do_srh_inline() fetches ipv6_hdr(skb) and accesses it after
    skb_cow_head(), which is illegal as the header could be freed then.

    Let’s fix it by making oldhdr to a local struct instead of a pointer.

    [0]:
    [root@fedora net]# ./lwt_dst_cache_ref_loop.sh

    TEST: rpl (input)
    [ 57.631529] ==================================================================
    BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in rpl_do_srh_inline.isra.0 (net/ipv6/rpl_iptunnel.c:174)
    Read of size 40 at addr ffff888122bf96d8 by task ping6/1543

    CPU: 50 UID: 0 PID: 1543 Comm: ping6 Not tainted 6.16.0-rc5-01302-gfadd1e6231b1 #23 PREEMPT(voluntary)
    Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2 04/01/2014
    Call Trace:

    dump_stack_lvl (lib/dump_stack.c:122)
    print_report (mm/kasan/report.c:409 mm/kasan/report.c:521)
    kasan_report (mm/kasan/report.c:221 mm/kasan/report.c:636)
    kasan_check_range (mm/kasan/generic.c:175 (discriminator 1) mm/kasan/generic.c:189 (discriminator 1))
    __asan_memmove (mm/kasan/shadow.c:94 (discriminator 2))
    rpl_do_srh_inline.isra.0 (net/ipv6/rpl_iptunnel.c:174)
    rpl_input (net/ipv6/rpl_iptunnel.c:201 net/ipv6/rpl_iptunnel.c:282)
    lwtunnel_input (net/core/lwtunnel.c:459)
    ipv6_rcv (./include/net/dst.h:471 (discriminator 1) ./include/net/dst.h:469 (discriminator 1) net/ipv6/ip6_input.c:79 (discriminator 1) ./include/linux/netfilter.h:317 (discriminator 1) ./include/linux/netfilter.h:311 (discriminator 1) net/ipv6/ip6_input.c:311 (discriminator 1))
    __netif_receive_skb_one_core (net/core/dev.c:5967)
    process_backlog (./include/linux/rcupdate.h:869 net/core/dev.c:6440)
    __napi_poll.constprop.0 (net/core/dev.c:7452)
    net_rx_action (net/core/dev.c:7518 net/core/dev.c:7643)
    handle_softirqs (kernel/softirq.c:579)
    do_softirq (kernel/softirq.c:480 (discriminator 20))

    __local_bh_enable_ip (kernel/softirq.c:407)
    __dev_queue_xmit (net/core/dev.c:4740)
    ip6_finish_output2 (./include/linux/netdevice.h:3358 ./include/net/neighbour.h:526 ./include/net/neighbour.h:540 net/ipv6/ip6_output.c:141)
    ip6_finish_output (net/ipv6/ip6_output.c:215 net/ipv6/ip6_output.c:226)
    ip6_output (./include/linux/netfilter.h:306 net/ipv6/ip6_output.c:248)
    ip6_send_skb (net/ipv6/ip6_output.c:1983)
    rawv6_sendmsg (net/ipv6/raw.c:588 net/ipv6/raw.c:918)
    __sys_sendto (net/socket.c:714 (discriminator 1) net/socket.c:729 (discriminator 1) net/socket.c:2228 (discriminator 1))
    __x64_sys_sendto (net/socket.c:2231)
    do_syscall_64 (arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:63 (discriminator 1) arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:94 (discriminator 1))
    entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe (arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:130)
    RIP: 0033:0x7f68cffb2a06
    Code: 5d e8 41 8b 93 08 03 00 00 59 5e 48 83 f8 fc 75 19 83 e2 39 83 fa 08 75 11 e8 26 ff ff ff 66 0f 1f 44 00 00 48 8b 45 10 0f 05 8b 5d f8 c9 c3 0f 1f 40 00 f3 0f 1e fa 55 48 89 e5 48 83 ec 08
    RSP: 002b:00007ffefb7c53d0 EFLAGS: 00000202 ORIG_RAX: 000000000000002c
    RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000564cd69f10a0 RCX: 00007f68cffb2a06
    RDX: 0000000000000040 RSI: 0000564cd69f10a4 RDI: 0000000000000003
    RBP: 00007ffefb7c53f0 R08: 0000564cd6a032ac R09: 000000000000001c
    R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000202 R12: 0000564cd69f10a4
    R13: 0000000000000040 R14: 00007ffefb7c66e0 R15: 0000564cd69f10a0

    Allocated by task 1543:
    kasan_save_stack (mm/kasan/common.c:48)
    kasan_save_track (mm/kasan/common.c:60 (discriminator 1) mm/kasan/common.c:69 (discriminator 1))
    __kasan_slab_alloc (mm/kasan/common.c:319 mm/kasan/common.c:345)
    kmem_cache_alloc_node_noprof (./include/linux/kasan.h:250 mm/slub.c:4148 mm/slub.c:4197 mm/slub.c:4249)
    kmalloc_reserve (net/core/skbuff.c:581 (discriminator 88))
    __alloc_skb (net/core/skbuff.c:669)
    __ip6_append_data (net/ipv6/ip6_output.c:1672 (discriminator 1))
    ip6_
    —truncated—

    Added Reference https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/034b428aa3583373a5a20b1c5931bb2b3cae1f36
    Added Reference https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/06ec83b6c792fde1f710c1de3e836da6e257c4c4
    Added Reference https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/62dcd9d6e61c39122d2f251a26829e2e55b0a11d
    Added Reference https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b640daa2822a39ff76e70200cb2b7b892b896dce
    Added Reference https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e8101506ab86dd78f823b7028f2036a380f3a12a
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