From 47abe7a5c4eb53269aca3506446f851572a059a3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Nguyen Ngoc Thang Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2026 22:08:16 +0700 Subject: [PATCH] net/sched: act_ct: don't WARN on benign flow_offload_alloc() failure flow_offload_alloc() returns NULL when the conntrack entry is dying (e.g. raced with a conntrack flush) or when the GFP_ATOMIC allocation fails; both are expected under load and neither is a kernel bug. This path runs from softirq on every committed packet, so with panic_on_warn=1 an unprivileged user can panic the box just by racing a conntrack flush against a `tc ... action ct commit` classifier. Reproduced with a custom repro under QEMU: a small, fixed set of UDP flows through `tc filter ... action ct commit` on lo, raced against threads flooding bare ctnetlink CT_DELETE (flush) requests. Hits WARNING: net/sched/act_ct.c:437 (tcf_ct_flow_table_add(), inlined into tcf_ct_act() in this build) within ~15s on the unpatched kernel; same setup is clean on the patched kernel. The fix itself is behavior-preserving: both branches already did `goto err_alloc` before and after, only the WARN is removed. Fixes: 64ff70b80fd4 ("net/sched: act_ct: Offload established connections to flow table") Reported-by: syzbot+6cc37aba98dac721c415@syzkaller.appspotmail.com Closes: https://syzkaller.appspot.com/bug?extid=6cc37aba98dac721c415 Signed-off-by: Nguyen Ngoc Thang Reviewed-by: Simon Horman Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260915150816.36487-1-ngocthang2710.1999@gmail.com Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski --- net/sched/act_ct.c | 5 ++--- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/net/sched/act_ct.c b/net/sched/act_ct.c index 9080cb386c16..55f3521edb4c 100644 --- a/net/sched/act_ct.c +++ b/net/sched/act_ct.c @@ -432,11 +432,10 @@ static void tcf_ct_flow_table_add(struct tcf_ct_flow_table *ct_ft, if (test_and_set_bit(IPS_OFFLOAD_BIT, &ct->status)) return; + /* NULL if ct is dying (raced flush) or the atomic alloc failed. */ entry = flow_offload_alloc(ct); - if (!entry) { - WARN_ON_ONCE(1); + if (!entry) goto err_alloc; - } if (tcp) { ct->proto.tcp.seen[0].flags |= IP_CT_TCP_FLAG_BE_LIBERAL;