[PATCH net v2] net: sched: prevent scheduling deactivated qdiscs

[PATCH net v2] net: sched: prevent scheduling deactivated qdiscs

[David Lee]

From: Kyle Zeng <kylebot@openai.com>

TAPRIO can schedule a deactivated qdisc after some_qdisc_is_busy() has
reported it idle.

Commit 47e8dbb6e763 ("net/sched: do not reset queues in graft operations")
made graft deactivation skip queue reset, leaving TAPRIO's timer armed.

A late callback schedules NET_TX softirq work, whose dequeue path can
race the unlocked child-queue reset in taprio_reset(). The same skb can
be queued for deferred freeing by RTNL and dequeued for transmission.
In the reproducer, the TAP reader frees it before __rtnl_unlock() reads
its next pointer. KASAN reports a slab-use-after-free in
__rtnl_unlock+0xa3/0xd0, with a read of size 8 from the freed skb.

Reject deactivated qdiscs in __netif_schedule(). Callers' RCU protection
lets the existing grace period join earlier scheduling calls before the
busy check. Restart nonempty transmit queues on reactivation so suppressed
scheduling does not strand packets.

Fixes: 47e8dbb6e763 ("net/sched: do not reset queues in graft operations")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20260805102514.740834-1-david.lee@trailofbits.com/
Assisted-by: Codex:gpt-5.6-sol Codex:gpt-5.5-cyber
Signed-off-by: Kyle Zeng <kylebot@openai.com>
Co-developed-by: David Lee <david.lee@trailofbits.com>
Signed-off-by: David Lee <david.lee@trailofbits.com>
---
Bug found and triaged by OpenAI Security Research and
validated by Trail of Bits.
Trail of Bits has a reproducer that triggers a KASAN use-after-free
and can share it if needed.


Changes in v2:
- Move the deactivation guard from TAPRIO into __netif_schedule().
- Correct Fixes to 47e8dbb6e763 and narrow the stable range to 7.1+.
- Retest with KASAN and check packet flow and temporary reactivation.

v1: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20260805102514.740834-1-david.lee@trailofbits.com/

 net/core/dev.c          | 3 +++
 net/sched/sch_generic.c | 4 ++++
 2 files changed, 7 insertions(+)

diff --git a/net/core/dev.c b/net/core/dev.c
index 1a09e7869..bcd2d5197 100644
--- a/net/core/dev.c
+++ b/net/core/dev.c
@@ -3478,6 +3478,9 @@ static void __netif_reschedule(struct Qdisc *q)
 
 void __netif_schedule(struct Qdisc *q)
 {
+	if (unlikely(test_bit(__QDISC_STATE_DEACTIVATED, &q->state)))
+		return;
+
 	/* If q->defer_list is not empty, at least one thread is
 	 * in __dev_xmit_skb() before llist_del_all(&q->defer_list).
 	 * This thread will attempt to run the queue.
diff --git a/net/sched/sch_generic.c b/net/sched/sch_generic.c
index 6f6a6f0d5..bff425a14 100644
--- a/net/sched/sch_generic.c
+++ b/net/sched/sch_generic.c
@@ -1280,6 +1280,10 @@ static void transition_one_qdisc(struct net_device *dev,
 	if (need_watchdog_p) {
 		WRITE_ONCE(dev_queue->trans_start, jiffies);
 		*need_watchdog_p = 1;
+
+		/* Resume backlog left by a suppressed schedule while deactivated. */
+		if (!qdisc_is_empty(new_qdisc))
+			netif_schedule_queue(dev_queue);
 	}
 }