Look up another CVE · open CVE-2026-63981 in the interactive tracker
CVE-2026-63981
net/sched: act_mirred: Fix blockcast recursion bypass leading to stack overflow
Published 2026-07-19 (3 months ago) by the Linux kernel CNA. Subsystem net/sched. Debian urgency: unimportant.
What to do, per Debian release
Debian's own status for CVE-2026-63981 in every release this site tracks, and what each one means in practice. Every status below is the one the Debian Security Team publishes for this CVE. source
| Release | Status | Version | What this means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 12bookworm | not affected | 6.1.190-1 | Nothing to do. bookworm never shipped the vulnerable code. |
| Debian 13trixie | not affected | 6.12.113-1 | Nothing to do. trixie never shipped the vulnerable code. |
| Debian 14forky | fixed | 7.0.12-1 | Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 7.0.12-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts. |
| Debian unstablesid | fixed | 7.0.12-1 | Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 7.0.12-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts. |
The vulnerability
What the bug is
tcf_mirred_act() checks sched_mirred_nest against MIRRED_NEST_LIMIT (4) to prevent deep recursion. However, when the action uses blockcast (tcfm_blockid != 0), the function returns at the tcf_blockcast() call BEFORE reaching the counter increment. As a result, the recursion counter never advances and the limit check is entirely bypassed. When two devices share a TC egress block with a mirred blockcast rule, a packet egressing on device A is mirrored to device B via blockcast; device B's egress TC re-enters tcf_mirred_act() via blockcast and mirrors back to A, creating an unbounded recursion loop: tcf_mirred_act -> tcf_blockcast -> tcf_mirred_to_dev -> dev_queue_xmit -> sch_handle_egress -> tcf_classify -> tcf_mirred_act -> (repeat) This recursion continues until the kernel stack overflows. The bug is reachable from an unprivileged user via unshare(CLONE_NEWUSER | CLONE_NEWNET): user namespaces grant CAP_NET_ADMIN in the new network namespace, which is sufficient to create dummy devices, attach clsact qdiscs with shared blocks, and install mirred blockcast filters. BUG: TASK stack guard page was hit at ffffc90000b7fff8 Oops: stack guard page: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN NOPTI CPU: 2 UID: 1000 PID: 169 Comm: poc Not tainted 7.0.0-rc7-next-20260410 RIP: 0010:xas_find+0x17/0x480 Call Trace: xa_find+0x17b/0x1d0 tcf_mirred_act+0x640/0x1060 tcf_action_exec+0x400/0x530 basic_classify+0x128/0x1d0 tcf_classify+0xd83/0x1150 tc_run+0x328/0x620 __dev_queue_xmit+0x797/0x3100 tcf_mirred_to_dev+0x7b1/0xf70 tcf_mirred_act+0x68a/0x1060 [repeating ~30+ times until stack overflow] Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt Fix this by incrementing sched_mirred_nest before calling tcf_blockcast() and decrementing it on return, mirroring the non-blockcast path. This ensures subsequent recursive entries see the updated counter and are correctly limited by MIRRED_NEST_LIMIT.
Where it lives
The fix touches these files. If the subsystem is one you do not use, the practical exposure is lower, though the package is still the vulnerable one.
net/sched/act_mirred.c
- What this is
- TC subsystemMAINTAINERS section matched on net/sched/ · netdev@vger.kernel.org · Maintained
- Kernel module
- act_mirred
Check it on the machine
grep -w CONFIG_NET_ACT_MIRRED /boot/config-$(uname -r)Reads the booted kernel's own configuration, on the machine and nowhere else. =y is built in, =m is a module, and an is not set line means the code is not there.
lsmod | grep -w act_mirredPrints a line if that module is loaded right now, and nothing if it is not. One that is not loaded can still be loaded later by anything that needs it.
Show whether Debian builds this, per release
Debian builds this as a loadable module. Every release below compiles it as a module on every flavour, so whether the code is in the running kernel depends on whether that module is loaded.
- bookworm, trixie, forky, sidm
- m
- a loadable module on every flavour - check lsmod, can be blacklisted
- Build switch
- CONFIG_NET_ACT_MIRRED
From the configuration Debian publishes for every kernel flavour it builds. It covers only the architectures Debian ships a linux-config package for, and nothing about a kernel you built yourself. Debian's own status above stays authoritative about the source package.MAINTAINERS kbuild Makefiles Debian linux-config packages
Signals
- Published
- 2026-07-19 (3 months ago)source
- CVSS
- no vector published, unrated
- Attack vector
- not published
- EPSS
- 0.23%, higher than 12.7% of all CVEssource
- CISA KEV
- not listedthe KEV catalogue
- Debian urgency
- unimportantsource
- Subsystem
- net/sched
Upstream fixes
The versions the CNA records as introducing and fixing this, and the commit for each. source
| Introduced | Fixed in | Commit |
|---|---|---|
| 6.12.93 | 6.12.93 | 25fc9352590f |
| 6.19 | 7.0.12 | 34457de389fb |
| 6.19 | 7.1 | a005fa5d7502 |
Why the CNA scored it this way
The kernel CNA published no CVSS vector and no reasoning for CVE-2026-63981, which is why it is shown as unrated rather than given an invented score. 6,405 of the 20,413 CVEs here carry reasoning; this is not one of them.