CVE-2025-39677: net/sched: Fix backlog accounting in qdisc_dequeue_internal

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2025-39677 is a high (CVSS 7.8) vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.17% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 5.6% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 05-09-2025
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 21-10-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: Fix backlog accounting in qdisc_dequeue_internal This issue applies for the following qdiscs: hhf, fq, fq_codel, and fq_pie, and occurs in their change handlers when adjusting to the new limit. The problem is the following in the values passed to the subsequent qdisc_tree_reduce_backlog call given a tbf parent: When the tbf parent runs out of tokens, skbs of these qdiscs will be placed in gso_skb. Their peek handlers are qdisc_peek_dequeued, which accounts for both qlen and backlog. However, in the case of qdisc_dequeue_internal, ONLY qlen is accounted for when pulling from gso_skb. This means that these qdiscs are missing a qdisc_qstats_backlog_dec when dropping packets to satisfy the new limit in their change handlers. One can observe this issue with the following (with tc patched to support a limit of 0): export TARGET=fq tc qdisc del dev lo root tc qdisc add dev lo root handle 1: tbf rate 8bit burst 100b latency 1ms tc qdisc replace dev lo handle 3: parent 1:1 $TARGET limit 1000 echo ''; echo 'add child'; tc -s -d qdisc show dev lo ping -I lo -f -c2 -s32 -W0.001 127.0.0.1 2>&1 >/dev/null echo ''; echo 'after ping'; tc -s -d qdisc show dev lo tc qdisc change dev lo handle 3: parent 1:1 $TARGET limit 0 echo ''; echo 'after limit drop'; tc -s -d qdisc show dev lo tc qdisc replace dev lo handle 2: parent 1:1 sfq echo ''; echo 'post graft'; tc -s -d qdisc show dev lo The second to last show command shows 0 packets but a positive number (74) of backlog bytes. The problem becomes clearer in the last show command, where qdisc_purge_queue triggers qdisc_tree_reduce_backlog with the positive backlog and causes an underflow in the tbf parent's backlog (4096 Mb instead of 0). To fix this issue, the codepath for all clients of qdisc_dequeue_internal has been simplified: codel, pie, hhf, fq, fq_pie, and fq_codel. qdisc_dequeue_internal handles the backlog adjustments for all cases that do not directly use the dequeue handler. The old fq_codel_change limit adjustment loop accumulated the arguments to the subsequent qdisc_tree_reduce_backlog call through the cstats field. However, this is confusing and error prone as fq_codel_dequeue could also potentially mutate this field (which qdisc_dequeue_internal calls in the non gso_skb case), so we have unified the code here with other qdiscs.

No weakness data has been published for this record.