[PATCH net v2] net/rose: fix NULL pointer dereference in rose_transmit_link on reconnect

Jiayuan Chen <[email protected]> Wed, 11 Mar 2026 15:06:02 +0800
Newsgroups org.kernel.vger.linux-hams,org.kernel.vger.linux-kernel,org.kernel.vger.netdev
Message-ID <[email protected]>
From: Jiayuan Chen <[email protected]>

syzkaller reported a bug [1], and the reproducer is available at [2].

ROSE sockets use four sk->sk_state values: TCP_CLOSE, TCP_LISTEN,
TCP_SYN_SENT, and TCP_ESTABLISHED. rose_connect() already rejects
calls for TCP_ESTABLISHED (-EISCONN) and TCP_CLOSE with SS_CONNECTING
(-ECONNREFUSED), but lacks a check for TCP_SYN_SENT.

When rose_connect() is called a second time while the first connection
attempt is still in progress (TCP_SYN_SENT), it overwrites
rose->neighbour via rose_get_neigh(). If that returns NULL, the socket
is left with rose->state == ROSE_STATE_1 but rose->neighbour == NULL.
When the socket is subsequently closed, rose_release() sees
ROSE_STATE_1 and calls rose_write_internal() ->
rose_transmit_link(skb, NULL), causing a NULL pointer dereference.

Per connect(2), a second connect() while a connection is already in
progress should return -EALREADY. Add this missing check for
TCP_SYN_SENT to complete the state validation in rose_connect().

[1] https://syzkaller.appspot.com/bug?extid=d00f90e0af54102fb271
[2] https://gist.github.com/mrpre/9e6779e0d13e2c66779b1653fef80516

Fixes: 1da177e4c3f4 ("Linux-2.6.12-rc2")
Reported-by: [email protected]
Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/all/[email protected]/T/
Suggested-by: Eric Dumazet <[email protected]>
Cc: Jiayuan Chen <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Jiayuan Chen <[email protected]>
---
 net/rose/af_rose.c | 5 +++++
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+)

diff --git a/net/rose/af_rose.c b/net/rose/af_rose.c
index 841d62481048..ba56213e0a2a 100644
--- a/net/rose/af_rose.c
+++ b/net/rose/af_rose.c
@@ -811,6 +811,11 @@ static int rose_connect(struct socket *sock, struct sockaddr_unsized *uaddr, int
 		goto out_release;
 	}
 
+	if (sk->sk_state == TCP_SYN_SENT) {
+		err = -EALREADY;
+		goto out_release;
+	}
+
 	sk->sk_state   = TCP_CLOSE;
 	sock->state = SS_UNCONNECTED;
 
-- 
2.43.0