CVE-2025-38457net/sched: Abort __tc_modify_qdisc if parent class does not exist

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: Abort __tc_modify_qdisc if parent class does not exist Lion's patch [1] revealed an ancient bug in the qdisc API. Whenever a user creates/modifies a qdisc specifying as a parent another qdisc, the qdisc API will, during grafting, detect that the user is not trying to attach to a class and reject. However grafting is performed after qdisc_create (and thus the qdiscs' init callback) is executed. In qdiscs that eventually call qdisc_tree_reduce_backlog during init or change (such as fq, hhf, choke, etc), an issue arises. For example, executing the following commands: sudo tc qdisc add dev lo root handle a: htb default 2 sudo tc qdisc add dev lo parent a: handle beef fq Qdiscs such as fq, hhf, choke, etc unconditionally invoke qdisc_tree_reduce_backlog() in their control path init() or change() which then causes a failure to find the child class; however, that does not stop the unconditional invocation of the assumed child qdisc's qlen_notify with a null class. All these qdiscs make the assumption that class is non-null. The solution is ensure that qdisc_leaf() which looks up the parent class, and is invoked prior to qdisc_create(), should return failure on not finding the class. In this patch, we leverage qdisc_leaf to return ERR_PTRs whenever the parentid doesn't correspond to a class, so that we can detect it earlier on and abort before qdisc_create is called. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/d912cbd7-193b-4269-9857-525bee8bbb6a@gmail.com/

CVSS

Not yet scored

Weakness (CWE)

Not given

Known exploited

Not in CISA's KEV catalog

EPSS (exploitation in the next 30 days)

Not loaded for this CVE

Assigned by

Linux

NVD analysis

Not yet received

Record last updated

Oct 15, 2026

First seen by InfoSec Signals

Oct 15, 2026

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