CyberRota Analysis
AI-GeneratedThe vulnerability affects the Linux kernel's handling of zero-byte packets sent via the TPACKET ring buffer, which can lead to assertion failures in the packet transmission process. This flaw could potentially disrupt network communication by causing the system to reject valid packets or trigger warnings, impacting network stability and performance. Organizations using Linux systems, particularly those relying on network packet processing, should prioritize addressing this issue to maintain operational integrity.
Original NVD Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: af_packet: Don't send zero-byte data in tpacket_snd(). syzbot reported a WARNING in __dev_queue_xmit() triggered via tpacket_snd(): skb_assert_len WARNING: at include/linux/skbuff.h:2753 skb_assert_len WARNING: at __dev_queue_xmit+0x21bc/0x4970 net/core/dev.c:4781 Call Trace: <TASK> dev_queue_xmit include/linux/netdevice.h:3448 [inline] packet_xmit+0x243/0x310 net/packet/af_packet.c:276 tpacket_snd net/packet/af_packet.c:2907 [inline] packet_sendmsg+0x28d6/0x4eb0 net/packet/af_packet.c:3134 When sending 0-byte packets via TPACKET ring buffer on devices with no hard header (e.g. dev->hard_header_len == 0), tpacket_fill_skb() populates an skb with skb->len == 0 and returns 0. tpacket_snd() then forwards this empty skb to packet_xmit(), causing __dev_queue_xmit() to hit skb_assert_len(skb). Similar checks exist in packet_snd() via commit dc633700f00f ("net/af_packet: check len when min_header_len equals to 0") and in packet_sendmsg_spkt() via commit 6a341729fb31 ("af_packet: Don't send zero-byte data in packet_sendmsg_spkt()."). Return -EINVAL in tpacket_fill_skb() when skb->len is zero to reject zero-length packets in tpacket_snd().