High [CVE-2026-74743] inherit needed_headroom and needed_tailroom from lowerdev
This high-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-74743 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.
Android app · Google Play
Monitor future Red Hat Linux CVEs from your phone.
Choose a whole vendor or a precise platform, then receive matching security advisories by phone notification, email, or both. Coverage follows 32 official vendor sources and 160+ reviewed platform categories.
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: macvlan: inherit needed_headroom and needed_tailroom from lowerdev macvlan devices inherit hard_header_len from lowerdev during macvlan_init(), but leave needed_headroom and needed_tailroom set to 0.
When the underlying lowerdev requires extra headroom or tailroom for headers/trailers (e.g. macsec, ipsec, wireguard, tunnels, or veth with rx headroom), upper layers calculating packet headroom and tailroom fail to reserve sufficient space.
This can result in reallocation overhead, skb headroom underflows, or KASAN slab-use-after-free crashes when dev_hard_header() / macvlan_hard_header() prepends header data or when lower devices append tailroom. Fix this by: 1.
2. Propagating needed_headroom and needed_tailroom updates to attached macvlans in macvlan_device_event() when receiving NETDEV_FEAT_CHANGE events.
The macvlan component incorrectly initializes network packet buffer (skb) headroom and tailroom values, failing to inherit them from the underlying network device. This oversight can lead to memory corruption, specifically KASAN slab-use-after-free crashes, potentially resulting in a denial of service.
Red Hat severity: Important — CVSS 7 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H). Weakness: CWE-124.
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
Discussion(0)
No comments yet. Share field notes, upgrade gotchas, or questions — verify against the vendor advisory before acting on community advice.
Sign in to join the discussion.