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From: Jhonata Poma-Hansen via B4 Relay <devnull+jhonata.poma.gmail.com@kernel.org>
To: "David S. Miller" <davem@davemloft.net>,
	 Eric Dumazet <edumazet@kernel.org>,
	Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>,
	 Paolo Abeni <pabeni@redhat.com>, Simon Horman <horms@kernel.org>,
	 Shuah Khan <shuah@kernel.org>
Cc: netdev@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	 linux-kselftest@vger.kernel.org,
	Kuniyuki Iwashima <kuniyu@google.com>,
	 Jhonata Poma-Hansen <jhonata.poma@gmail.com>
Subject: [PATCH net 1/2] netlink: retry a dump skb that does not fit with the minimum size
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2026 13:26:07 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20261023-netlink-dump-livelock-v1-1-478214a635d2@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20261023-netlink-dump-livelock-v1-0-478214a635d2@gmail.com>

From: Jhonata Poma-Hansen <jhonata.poma@gmail.com>

netlink_dump() sizes the skb after the largest buffer the reader passed
to recvmsg(), up to 32KiB. Since commit ae8f160e7eb2 ("netlink: Fix
wraparounds of sk->sk_rmem_alloc.") the skb is only queued if it fits
in sk_rcvbuf, or if nothing else is charged to the socket.

A reader with a small receive buffer that still has data charged to
its socket when a dump starts gets ENOBUFS, even when a minimum size
skb would fit. The dump stays marked as running and every recvmsg()
retries it, so a reader that peeks before reading, as libnl does,
never consumes the data at the head of the queue and spins forever.

"iw dev wlan0 scan" hits this: its socket has an 8KiB buffer, it joins
the nl80211 multicast groups, and it dumps the scan results as soon as
it has read the NEW_SCAN_RESULTS notification. When it preempts the
sender, the notification is still charged to its socket until
netlink_broadcast() returns, the dump fails to start and iw spins at
100% CPU.

Retry with alloc_min_size before failing the dump.

Fixes: ae8f160e7eb2 ("netlink: Fix wraparounds of sk->sk_rmem_alloc.")
Signed-off-by: Jhonata Poma-Hansen <jhonata.poma@gmail.com>
---
 net/netlink/af_netlink.c | 11 +++++++++++
 1 file changed, 11 insertions(+)

diff --git a/net/netlink/af_netlink.c b/net/netlink/af_netlink.c
index a904dc3bc..b750e79fe 100644
--- a/net/netlink/af_netlink.c
+++ b/net/netlink/af_netlink.c
@@ -2318,10 +2318,21 @@ static int netlink_dump(struct sock *sk, bool lock_taken)
 	if (!skb)
 		goto errout_skb;
 
+retry:
 	rcvbuf = READ_ONCE(sk->sk_rcvbuf);
 	rmem = atomic_add_return(skb->truesize, &sk->sk_rmem_alloc);
 	if (rmem != skb->truesize && rmem >= rcvbuf) {
 		atomic_sub(skb->truesize, &sk->sk_rmem_alloc);
+		/* A skb sized after max_recvmsg_len may not fit next to data
+		 * still charged to the socket, while a minimum size one does.
+		 */
+		if (alloc_size > alloc_min_size) {
+			kfree_skb(skb);
+			alloc_size = alloc_min_size;
+			skb = alloc_skb(alloc_size, GFP_KERNEL);
+			if (skb)
+				goto retry;
+		}
 		goto errout_skb;
 	}
 

-- 
2.54.0



  reply	other threads:[~2026-10-23 11:26 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-10-23 11:26 [PATCH net 0/2] netlink: fix a dump livelock with a notification queued Jhonata Poma-Hansen via B4 Relay
2026-10-23 11:26 ` Jhonata Poma-Hansen via B4 Relay [this message]
2026-10-23 11:26 ` [PATCH net 2/2] selftests: net: netlink-dumps: start a dump " Jhonata Poma-Hansen via B4 Relay

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