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Medium5.5Red Hat Linux

Medium [CVE-2026-74742] fix queue index used to wake the peer txq in veth_poll

This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-74742 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat package: kernel.

CVE-2026-74742 Published Aug 26, 2026Updated by vendor Aug 26, 2026
Affected products & platforms
Red Hat LinuxLinux Kernel
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Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: veth: fix queue index used to wake the peer txq in veth_poll veth_poll() derives the index of the peer TX queue to wake from rq->xdp_rxq.queue_index. That field is only initialized by xdp_rxq_info_reg() in veth_enable_xdp_range(), which runs only when an XDP program is attached.

On the plain GRO/NAPI path (veth_napi_enable_range()) xdp_rxq_info_reg() is never called, so queue_index stays 0 for every queue, as priv->rq is zero-allocated. So in a multi-queue setup with GRO enabled and no XDP program attached, every NAPI instance looks at the peer's TX queue 0.

If veth_xmit() stops peer TX queue 1 because the ptr_ring is full (NETDEV_TX_BUSY), nothing ever wakes it again: the poller draining queue 1 wakes queue 0 instead. veth implements no ndo_tx_timeout, so the netdev watchdog does not kick in either, and the queue stays stopped indefinitely.

Derive the index from the position of the rq within priv->rq instead, which is correct regardless of whether XDP was ever enabled. Scripts to reproduce the stall are available at In a multi-queue setup without an eXpress Data Path (XDP) program attached, the `veth_poll()` function incorrectly derives the index of the peer transmit (TX) queue to wake.

This can cause a TX queue to stop indefinitely if it becomes full, as the polling mechanism fails to reactivate it.

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 2 hours 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 2 hours 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 2 hours ago·verify at source

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