CVE-2026-74615: Undefined Security Weakness

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

vxlan: do not arm the ageing timer on a device that is down

vxlan_changelink() arms vxlan->age_timer whenever the requested ageing interval differs from the configured one:

if (conf.age_interval != vxlan->cfg.age_interval) mod_timer(&vxlan->age_timer, jiffies);

There is no netif_running() test, so the timer is armed even on a device that was never brought up. The only synchronous cancel in the driver is the timer_delete_sync() in vxlan_stop(), which is .ndo_stop. netif_close_many() drops devices without IFF_UP before __dev_close_many() runs, so that cancel is skipped for such a device.

vxlan_setup() sets dev->needs_free_netdev = true and age_timer is a member of struct vxlan_dev, so free_netdev() releases the allocation the timer lives in while it is still queued on a timer_base. expire_timers() unlinks the entry before it loads timer->function, so the timer core writes through the freed object's list pointers:

BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in __run_timers+0x208/0x654 Write of size 8 at addr ffff00001adace68 by task true/192 __asan_store8+0x84/0xac __run_timers+0x208/0x654 run_timer_softirq+0x154/0x18c Allocated by task 189: alloc_netdev_mqs+0x64/0x720 rtnl_create_link+0x4ac/0x520 rtnl_newlink+0x758/0xd00 Freed by task 191: netdev_release+0x40/0x58 netdev_run_todo+0x4a4/0x8c0 rtnl_dellink+0x200/0x4e8

The rtnl operations involved are netns-scoped, so an unprivileged user can perform them in a new user and network namespace.

Arming the timer on a down device never had an effect: vxlan_cleanup() returns early on !netif_running(), and vxlan_open() arms the timer for any non-zero interval once the device is brought up. Add the missing test.

Discovered by XBOW, triaged by Baul Lee <[email protected]>