In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: dsa: clean up FDB, MDB,...

Description

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

net: dsa: clean up FDB, MDB, VLAN entries on unbind

As explained in many places such as commit b117e1e8a86d ("net: dsa:
delete dsa_legacy_fdb_add and dsa_legacy_fdb_del"), DSA is written given
the assumption that higher layers have balanced additions/deletions.
As such, it only makes sense to be extremely vocal when those
assumptions are violated and the driver unbinds with entries still
present.

But Ido Schimmel points out a very simple situation where that is wrong:
https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/ZDazSM5UsPPjQuKr@shredder/
(also briefly discussed by me in the aforementioned commit).

Basically, while the bridge bypass operations are not something that DSA
explicitly documents, and for the majority of DSA drivers this API
simply causes them to go to promiscuous mode, that isn't the case for
all drivers. Some have the necessary requirements for bridge bypass
operations to do something useful - see dsa_switch_supports_uc_filtering().

Although in tools/testing/selftests/net/forwarding/local_termination.sh,
we made an effort to popularize better mechanisms to manage address
filters on DSA interfaces from user space - namely macvlan for unicast,
and setsockopt(IP_ADD_MEMBERSHIP) - through mtools - for multicast, the
fact is that 'bridge fdb add ... self static local' also exists as
kernel UAPI, and might be useful to someone, even if only for a quick
hack.

It seems counter-productive to block that path by implementing shim
.ndo_fdb_add and .ndo_fdb_del operations which just return -EOPNOTSUPP
in order to prevent the ndo_dflt_fdb_add() and ndo_dflt_fdb_del() from
running, although we could do that.

Accepting that cleanup is necessary seems to be the only option.
Especially since we appear to be coming back at this from a different
angle as well. Russell King is noticing that the WARN_ON() triggers even
for VLANs:
https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/[email protected]/

What happens in the bug report above is that dsa_port_do_vlan_del() fails,
then the VLAN entry lingers on, and then we warn on unbind and leak it.

This is not a straight revert of the blamed commit, but we now add an
informational print to the kernel log (to still have a way to see
that bugs exist), and some extra comments gathered from past years'
experience, to justify the logic.

Basic information

Type
unreviewed
Severity
medium
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Source code
Not specified
Published (advisory)
2025-05-09 09:33:20 UTC
Updated
2026-06-01 18:31:20 UTC
NVD published
2025-05-09

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.05% 17.14%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
5.5 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.

Identifiers

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-617 Reachable Assertion

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence