Medium [CVE-2026-63973] Add NULL guards in teardown path to prevent panic on attach failure
This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-63973 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.
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Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: mana: Add NULL guards in teardown path to prevent panic on attach failure When queue allocation fails partway through, the error cleanup frees and NULLs apc->tx_qp and apc->rxqs.
Multiple teardown paths such as mana_remove(), mana_change_mtu() recovery, and internal error handling in mana_alloc_queues() can subsequently call into functions that dereference these pointers without NULL checks: - mana_chn_setxdp() dereferences apc->rxqs[0], causing a NULL pointer dereference panic (CR2: 0000000000000000 at mana_chn_setxdp+0x26). - mana_destroy_vport() iterates apc->rxqs without a NULL check. - mana_fence_rqs() iterates apc->rxqs without a NULL check. - mana_dealloc_queues() iterates apc->tx_qp without a NULL check.
Add a NULL guard for apc->tx_qp in mana_dealloc_queues() to skip TX queue draining when TX queues were never allocated or already freed. A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's mana network driver.
During certain error handling scenarios, specifically when network queue allocation fails, the driver attempts to access memory that has already been freed. This can lead to a NULL pointer dereference, causing the system to crash and resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS).
Red Hat severity: Low — CVSS 5.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H). Weakness: CWE-476.
Affected versions
No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative — check it before change work.
Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 6 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 · medium-confidence parse· fetched 6 days ago·verify at source
Mitigation
The source record does not include mitigation steps. That is not a statement that no fix exists — read the vendor advisory below for the authoritative guidance.
Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 6 days ago·verify at source
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