High [CVE-2024-14040] Increase weight to u16
This high-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2024-14040 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, Red Hat package: kernel-rt.
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Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: nexthop: Increase weight to u16 In CLOS networks, as link failures occur at various points in the network, ECMP weights of the involved nodes are adjusted to compensate.
With high fan-out of the involved nodes, and overall high number of nodes, a (non-)ECMP weight ratio that we would like to configure does not fit into 8 bits. Instead of, say, 255:254, we might like to configure something like 1000:999.
For these deployments, the 8-bit weight may not be enough. To that end, in this patch increase the next hop weight from u8 to u16.
Increasing the width of an integral type can be tricky, because while the code still compiles, the types may not check out anymore, and numerical errors come up. To prevent this, the conversion was done in two steps.
First the type was changed from u8 to a single-member structure, which invalidated all uses of the field. This allowed going through them one by one and audit for type correctness.
Then the structure was replaced with a vanilla u16 again. This should ensure that no place was missed.
Affected products named by the advisory: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9; Red Hat package: kernel-rt.
Affected versions
No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative. Check it before change work.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 28 days ago·verify at source
Fixed versions
No fixed release is recorded yet. That does not prove no patch exists. Confirm against the vendor advisory.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 28 days ago·verify at source
Mitigation checklist
- Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 28 days ago·verify at source
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