Linux Kernel up to 6.19.8 Macb Driver macb_tx_poll memory leak

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.1.166/6.6.129/6.12.77/6.18.19/6.19.8. It has been classified as critical. The impacted element is the function macb_tx_poll of the component Macb Driver. The manipulation leads to memory leak. This vulnerability is documented as CVE-2026-43371. There is not any exploit available. Upgrading the affected component is recommended.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.1.166/6.6.129/6.12.77/6.18.19/6.19.8. This issue affects the function macb_tx_poll of the component Macb Driver. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a memory leak vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-401. The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, which slowly consumes remaining memory. Impacted is availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: macb: Shuffle the tx ring before enabling tx Quanyang observed that when using an NFS rootfs on an AMD ZynqMp board, the rootfs may take an extended time to recover after a suspend. Upon investigation, it was determined that the issue originates from a problem in the macb driver. According to the Zynq UltraScale TRM [1], when transmit is disabled, the transmit buffer queue pointer resets to point to the address specified by the transmit buffer queue base address register. In the current implementation, the code merely resets `queue->tx_head` and `queue->tx_tail` to '0'. This approach presents several issues: - Packets already queued in the tx ring are silently lost, leading to memory leaks since the associated skbs cannot be released. - Concurrent write access to `queue->tx_head` and `queue->tx_tail` may occur from `macb_tx_poll()` or `macb_start_xmit()` when these values are reset to '0'. - The transmission may become stuck on a packet that has already been sent out, with its 'TX_USED' bit set, but has not yet been processed. However, due to the manipulation of 'queue->tx_head' and 'queue->tx_tail', `macb_tx_poll()` incorrectly assumes there are no packets to handle because `queue->tx_head == queue->tx_tail`. This issue is only resolved when a new packet is placed at this position. This is the root cause of the prolonged recovery time observed for the NFS root filesystem. To resolve this issue, shuffle the tx ring and tx skb array so that the first unsent packet is positioned at the start of the tx ring. Additionally, ensure that updates to `queue->tx_head` and `queue->tx_tail` are properly protected with the appropriate lock. [1] https://docs.amd.com/v/u/en-US/ug1085-zynq-ultrascale-trm

It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-43371 since 05/01/2026. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit.

Upgrading to version 6.1.167, 6.6.130, 6.12.78, 6.18.20 or 6.19.9 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch c6783bfa31a59f34fe4feb1bdbf67791ef3fb0b7/0a47c3889fcd843c72aa57fa8c4d06f5801fced4/88f974fe118cb4653f029929ecbca7cfe06132ae/58f5d34f88e8f00910b692537f7b2efdb8c3705d/403182e0771b250cfde0fe7e1081d095ceaf8230/881a0263d502e1a93ebc13a78254e9ad19520232 is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at git.kernel.org. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2026-1454). Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

Affected

• Google Container-Optimized OS
• Debian Linux
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• SUSE openSUSE
• RESF Rocky Linux
• Red Hat OpenShift
• Microsoft Azure Linux
• Open Source Linux Kernel
• Proxmox Virtual Environment

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.1.166
• 6.6.129
• 6.12.0
• 6.12.1
• 6.12.2
• 6.12.3
• 6.12.4
• 6.12.5
• 6.12.6
• 6.12.7
• 6.12.8
• 6.12.9
• 6.12.10
• 6.12.11
• 6.12.12
• 6.12.13
• 6.12.14
• 6.12.15
• 6.12.16
• 6.12.17
• 6.12.18
• 6.12.19
• 6.12.20
• 6.12.21
• 6.12.22
• 6.12.23
• 6.12.24
• 6.12.25
• 6.12.26
• 6.12.27
• 6.12.28
• 6.12.29
• 6.12.30
• 6.12.31
• 6.12.32
• 6.12.33
• 6.12.34
• 6.12.35
• 6.12.36
• 6.12.37
• 6.12.38
• 6.12.39
• 6.12.40
• 6.12.41
• 6.12.42
• 6.12.43
• 6.12.44
• 6.12.45
• 6.12.46
• 6.12.47
• 6.12.48
• 6.12.49
• 6.12.50
• 6.12.51
• 6.12.52
• 6.12.53
• 6.12.54
• 6.12.55
• 6.12.56
• 6.12.57
• 6.12.58
• 6.12.59
• 6.12.60
• 6.12.61
• 6.12.62
• 6.12.63
• 6.12.64
• 6.12.65
• 6.12.66
• 6.12.67
• 6.12.68
• 6.12.69
• 6.12.70
• 6.12.71
• 6.12.72
• 6.12.73
• 6.12.74
• 6.12.75
• 6.12.76
• 6.12.77
• 6.18.0
• 6.18.1
• 6.18.2
• 6.18.3
• 6.18.4
• 6.18.5
• 6.18.6
• 6.18.7
• 6.18.8
• 6.18.9
• 6.18.10
• 6.18.11
• 6.18.12
• 6.18.13
• 6.18.14
• 6.18.15
• 6.18.16
• 6.18.17
• 6.18.18
• 6.18.19
• 6.19.0
• 6.19.1
• 6.19.2
• 6.19.3
• 6.19.4
• 6.19.5
• 6.19.6
• 6.19.7
• 6.19.8

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

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Entryinfo

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