From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: AL-KERNEL To: kernel-cve@kernelcve.org Subject: [CVE-2024-14040][LOW] 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. The UAPI for configuring nexthop group members is that an attribute NHA_GROUP carries an array of struct nexthop_grp entries: struct nexthop_grp { __u32 id; /* nexthop id - must exist */ __u8 weight; /* weight of this nexthop */ __u8 resvd1; __u16 resvd2; }; The field resvd1 is currently validated and required to be zero. We can lift this requirement and carry high-order bits of the weight in the reserved field: struct nexthop_grp { __u32 id; /* nexthop id - must exist */ __u8 weight; /* weight of this nexthop */ __u8 weight_high; __u16 resvd2; }; Keeping the fields split this way was chosen in case an existing userspace makes assumptions about the width of the weight field, and to sidestep any endianness issues. The weight field is currently encoded as the weight value minus one, because weight of 0 is invalid. This same trick is impossible for the new weight_high field, because zero must mean actual zero. With this in place: - Old userspace is guaranteed to carry weight_high of 0, therefore configuring 8-bit weights as appropriate. When dumping nexthops with 16-bit weight, it would only show the lower 8 bits. But configuring such nexthops implies existence of userspace aware of the extension in the first place. - New userspace talking to an old kernel will work as long as it only attempts to configure 8-bit weights, where the high-order bits are zero. Old kernel will bounce attempts at configuring >8-bit weights. Renaming reserved fields as they are allocated for some purpose is commonly done in Linux. Whoever touches a reserved field is doing so at their own risk. nexthop_grp::resvd1 in particular is currently used by at least strace, however they carry an own copy of UAPI headers, and the conversion should be trivial. A helper is provided for decoding the weight out of the two fields. Forcing a conversion seems preferable to bending backwards and introducing anonymous unions or whatever. Signed-off-by: Petr Machata Reviewed-by: Ido Schimmel Reviewed-by: David Ahern Reviewed-by: Przemek Kitszel Link: https://patch.msgid.link/483e2fcf4beb0d9135d62e7d27b46fa2685479d4.1723036486.git.petrm@nvidia.com Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2026 02:53:46 -0400 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-AL-KERNEL-CVE: CVE-2024-14040 X-AL-KERNEL-Priority: LOW X-AL-KERNEL-Severity: LOW X-AL-KERNEL-Base-Severity: LOW X-AL-KERNEL-KPANIC: NO X-AL-KERNEL-ActionableScore: 0 X-AL-KERNEL-ActionableScore-Lower: unknown X-AL-KERNEL-Commit: b72a6a7ab9573e06d5c2fcb92eaa28614a735bfd List-Id: CVE: CVE-2024-14040 Priority: LOW AL-KERNEL base severity: LOW KPANIC flag: NO Patch: 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. The UAPI for configuring nexthop group members is that an attribute NHA_GROUP carries an array of struct nexthop_grp entries: struct nexthop_grp { __u32 id; /* nexthop id - must exist */ __u8 weight; /* weight of this nexthop */ __u8 resvd1; __u16 resvd2; }; The field resvd1 is currently validated and required to be zero. We can lift this requirement and carry high-order bits of the weight in the reserved field: struct nexthop_grp { __u32 id; /* nexthop id - must exist */ __u8 weight; /* weight of this nexthop */ __u8 weight_high; __u16 resvd2; }; Keeping the fields split this way was chosen in case an existing userspace makes assumptions about the width of the weight field, and to sidestep any endianness issues. The weight field is currently encoded as the weight value minus one, because weight of 0 is invalid. This same trick is impossible for the new weight_high field, because zero must mean actual zero. With this in place: - Old userspace is guaranteed to carry weight_high of 0, therefore configuring 8-bit weights as appropriate. When dumping nexthops with 16-bit weight, it would only show the lower 8 bits. But configuring such nexthops implies existence of userspace aware of the extension in the first place. - New userspace talking to an old kernel will work as long as it only attempts to configure 8-bit weights, where the high-order bits are zero. Old kernel will bounce attempts at configuring >8-bit weights. Renaming reserved fields as they are allocated for some purpose is commonly done in Linux. Whoever touches a reserved field is doing so at their own risk. nexthop_grp::resvd1 in particular is currently used by at least strace, however they carry an own copy of UAPI headers, and the conversion should be trivial. A helper is provided for decoding the weight out of the two fields. Forcing a conversion seems preferable to bending backwards and introducing anonymous unions or whatever. Signed-off-by: Petr Machata Reviewed-by: Ido Schimmel Reviewed-by: David Ahern Reviewed-by: Przemek Kitszel Link: https://patch.msgid.link/483e2fcf4beb0d9135d62e7d27b46fa2685479d4.1723036486.git.petrm@nvidia.com Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski Commit: b72a6a7ab9573e06d5c2fcb92eaa28614a735bfd Upstream patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=b72a6a7ab9573e06d5c2fcb92eaa28614a735bfd Original CVE announcement: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2024-14040 Analysis date: Sun, 26 Jul 2026 02:53:46 -0400 ActionableScore: 0 ActionableScore lower bound: unknown Actionable bucket: Ordinary Moderate / Low-like Manual review required: NO Summary: This patch extends nexthop group ECMP weights from 8 bit to 16 bit and updates validation and rebalance arithmetic, with no demonstrated memory corruption, privilege escalation, remote trigger, or kernel crash primitive. ====================================================================== ABOUT THIS REPORT ====================================================================== The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2024-14040 is available here: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2024-14040 The original announcement does not normally provide a security severity estimate, CVSS assessment, or enough information to determine whether the reported kernel bug represents a practically relevant security issue. This report was generated by AL-KERNEL, an AI-assisted Linux kernel vulnerability analysis system developed by Alexander Larkin. It combines an autonomous classifier with LLM-assisted technical analysis and a separate ActionableScore mechanism. The purpose of this report is to prioritize Linux kernel CVEs before manual review, identify cases that require prompt investigation, and support automatic closure of issues that are unlikely to have meaningful security impact. Published priority for this report: LOW Manual review required: NO A detailed explanation of the methodology and priority rules is included at the end of this message. ====================================================================== AL-KERNEL CLASSIFICATION RESULT ====================================================================== CVE-2024-14040 LOW CHECK WITH IMPACT FROM ORIG NN MODERATE Maybe valid. Check manually. Hints by AL-KERNEL: The best (paranoid) CVSS is 'AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L';CWE-682;Other CVSS 'AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:N';BEST CVSS score: '2.3';DESCR 'Nexthop group weight handling is being extended from 8 bit to 16 bit for ECMP and non ECMP routing deployments. Based on the provided diff, this is a UAPI and arithmetic width change rather than a memory corruption or privilege escalation issue. Configuration of nexthop groups is a local routing control plane operation. For the CVSS the PR:H because reliable triggering requires administrative routing privileges such as CAP_NET_ADMIN in typical deployments. The issue is not directly network reachable because packet traffic does not create or modify nexthop groups. Impact is at most operational routing policy inconsistency or incorrect load balancing if userspace compatibility assumptions are wrong, with no demonstrated confidentiality or integrity impact and no kernel crash primitive.';NO MANUAL CHECK; ,and ActionableScore result is Ordinary Moderate / Low-like (with actual score 0) YES REMOTE DECREASED_TO_MODERATE_REGULAR_FROM_MODERATE7_BASED_ON_GUESSCVSS DECREASED_TO_LOW_FROM_MODERATE_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCORELESSTHAN3 NO YES checked ====================================================================== ACTIONABLESCORE ANALYSIS ====================================================================== ActionableScore=0 ## 1. ActionableScore * Conservative score: 0 * Paranoid score: 0 * Final recommended bucket: **Ordinary Moderate / Low-like**:: ## 2. Signal breakdown Positive signals: * None security-relevant. * No UAF, double-free, OOB write, type confusion, refcount issue, stale pointer, arbitrary write, info leak, or kernel crash primitive is shown. * The patch is a UAPI and arithmetic-width extension for nexthop ECMP weights from u8 to u16. Negative signals: * Requires admin/root/CAP_NET_ADMIN in typical deployments: -2. Creating or modifying nexthop groups is a routing control-plane operation. * Not remote reachable. Packet traffic does not create or modify nexthop groups. * No demonstrated confidentiality, integrity, or availability impact beyond possible administrative misconfiguration or compatibility behavior. ## 3. Reachability analysis The affected path is reachable through netlink routing configuration for nexthop groups. In normal deployments this requires CAP_NET_ADMIN or equivalent administrative routing privileges. Network namespaces may delegate CAP_NET_ADMIN inside a namespace, but this still represents a privileged routing-control context rather than an unprivileged local trigger. The path is not triggered by normal packet forwarding or remote traffic. The subsystem is common, but the changed behavior is administrative configuration of ECMP weights, not a packet-processing vulnerability. ## 4. Severity interpretation This behaves like a non-security functional change or at most a very low-risk correctness issue. The patch expands supported nexthop weights and updates related arithmetic to avoid truncation or numerical mistakes. There is no realistic evidence of memory corruption, privilege escalation, information disclosure, or reliable kernel DoS. Theoretical routing-policy inconsistency is not enough to make this actionable as a kernel CVE. ## 5. One-sentence report phrase This patch extends nexthop group ECMP weights from 8 bit to 16 bit and updates validation and rebalance arithmetic, with no demonstrated memory corruption, privilege escalation, remote trigger, or kernel crash primitive. ## 6. Manual review recommendation NO MANUAL CHECK NEEDED This can be auto-closed for security triage unless an external advisory provides a concrete downstream primitive not present in the patch. ====================================================================== UPSTREAM PATCH SUMMARY ====================================================================== Patch: 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. The UAPI for configuring nexthop group members is that an attribute NHA_GROUP carries an array of struct nexthop_grp entries: struct nexthop_grp { __u32 id; /* nexthop id - must exist */ __u8 weight; /* weight of this nexthop */ __u8 resvd1; __u16 resvd2; }; The field resvd1 is currently validated and required to be zero. We can lift this requirement and carry high-order bits of the weight in the reserved field: struct nexthop_grp { __u32 id; /* nexthop id - must exist */ __u8 weight; /* weight of this nexthop */ __u8 weight_high; __u16 resvd2; }; Keeping the fields split this way was chosen in case an existing userspace makes assumptions about the width of the weight field, and to sidestep any endianness issues. The weight field is currently encoded as the weight value minus one, because weight of 0 is invalid. This same trick is impossible for the new weight_high field, because zero must mean actual zero. With this in place: - Old userspace is guaranteed to carry weight_high of 0, therefore configuring 8-bit weights as appropriate. When dumping nexthops with 16-bit weight, it would only show the lower 8 bits. But configuring such nexthops implies existence of userspace aware of the extension in the first place. - New userspace talking to an old kernel will work as long as it only attempts to configure 8-bit weights, where the high-order bits are zero. Old kernel will bounce attempts at configuring >8-bit weights. Renaming reserved fields as they are allocated for some purpose is commonly done in Linux. Whoever touches a reserved field is doing so at their own risk. nexthop_grp::resvd1 in particular is currently used by at least strace, however they carry an own copy of UAPI headers, and the conversion should be trivial. A helper is provided for decoding the weight out of the two fields. Forcing a conversion seems preferable to bending backwards and introducing anonymous unions or whatever. Signed-off-by: Petr Machata Reviewed-by: Ido Schimmel Reviewed-by: David Ahern Reviewed-by: Przemek Kitszel Link: https://patch.msgid.link/483e2fcf4beb0d9135d62e7d27b46fa2685479d4.1723036486.git.petrm@nvidia.com Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski Commit: b72a6a7ab9573e06d5c2fcb92eaa28614a735bfd Upstream URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=b72a6a7ab9573e06d5c2fcb92eaa28614a735bfd Changed files: include/net/nexthop.h include/uapi/linux/nexthop.h net/ipv4/nexthop.c Diff excerpt: Not included in this email. See the upstream URL for the full patch. Full patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=b72a6a7ab9573e06d5c2fcb92eaa28614a735bfd ====================================================================== DETAILED REPORT METHODOLOGY ====================================================================== The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2024-14040 can be found here: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2024-14040 The original CVE announcement normally does not include a security-level estimate. In particular, it may not contain a CVSS assessment, an impact level, or enough information to determine whether the reported bug is a practically relevant security issue. One purpose of this parallel CVE list is to provide that missing technical and prioritization information. The original goal of the AL-KERNEL project was to prioritize Linux kernel CVE analysis automatically before manual review. The system can also help identify non-security issues that may be suitable for automatic closure. This report was generated by AL-KERNEL, an AI-assisted Linux kernel vulnerability analysis system developed by Alexander Larkin. The first analysis stage combines an autonomous classifier with additional LLM-based analysis. The autonomous classifier runs locally on a CPU and is based on a backpropagation neural network. Together, these mechanisms produce a technical vulnerability description, identify likely weakness types, estimate CVSS severity, and provide input for ActionableScore. Two CVSS estimates are retained because incomplete kernel vulnerability information often permits more than one defensible interpretation: Conservative CVSS vector: AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:N The Best / paranoid CVSS vector: AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L The Best / paranoid CVSS score: 2.3 The conservative vector represents a lower-impact interpretation. The Best/paranoid vector intentionally represents a plausible upper-bound interpretation and should not automatically be treated as demonstrated real-world impact. CVSS may also need to be adjusted for a particular Linux deployment, because actual reachability, privileges, enabled kernel configuration, hardware, namespaces, exposed device nodes, and other environmental conditions can differ significantly between systems. A separate ActionableScore mechanism evaluates practical remediation urgency. Its analysis may include reachability, attack prerequisites, subsystem exposure, memory-corruption characteristics, denial-of-service reliability, and possible confidentiality, integrity, or privilege-escalation impact. Conservative ActionableScore: unknown Paranoid ActionableScore: 0 The final base severity is taken directly from the second tab-separated field of the AL-KERNEL classification result. ActionableScore does not replace or independently override that final AL-KERNEL decision, and if ActionableScore adjusted impact level of ALKERNEL, then you would see self-readable flags above like INCREASED_TO_HIGH_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCOREHIGHEREQTHAN7. For an AL-KERNEL result of MODERATE, this report uses the following additional presentation split: ActionableScore below 5 -> MODERATE REGULAR ActionableScore 5 or more -> MODERATE 7.0 The distinction between MODERATE REGULAR and MODERATE 7.0 makes it possible to identify Moderate issues that should receive manual analysis and fixes before lower-priority MODERATE REGULAR issues. In many cases, MODERATE REGULAR fixes may wait for a later rebase or routine update. There is one override in which MODERATE REGULAR becomes MODERATE 7.0 even when the ActionableScore is below 5. When the AL-KERNEL result contains the KPANIC flag, a MODERATE result is always presented as MODERATE 7.0. The KPANIC flag selected with few regexps without usage of AI at all, so it helps to detect cases when Kernel Crash happens and similar (to filter False-Negative results from the LLM usage). KPANIC indicates that a reliable kernel crash, kernel panic, or similarly serious kernel availability impact was identified by the classification workflow. AL-KERNEL base severity for this report: LOW KPANIC detected for this report: NO Published priority for this report (same as in Subject): LOW These results are intended to support engineering triage. They are machine-generated estimates, and cases marked for manual review should be validated by a human security engineer before final disposition. For more info read docs linked from here: https://kernelcve.org/ (and you can submit you own patch there to generate such a report for non-existant CVE-id yet). Note that in many cases this AI tool selects higher severity, than real is (means you can expect Importants instead of Moderate 7.0 or Moderates 7.0 instead of regular Moderates). If you see such cases, please use reply email interface to add additional manual analyses info to this particular CVE. And please, please, let me know when you see Lows instead of Importants or Important instead of Low (because particular for such cases I need to tune this AI tool to make it better for this one and next similar). My contact email for such notifications is alexanjelausa@gmail.com (and both send reply to CVE record itself too and see "reply" button below for howto reply).