[PATCH batadv] batman-adv: annotate functions which may cow reallocate the skbuff

Sven Eckelmann <[email protected]> Fri, 10 Jul 2026 22:19:58 +0200
Newsgroups org.open-mesh.lists.batman
Message-ID <[email protected]>
When a function is called which reallocated the skbuff, it is necessary to
reacquire the pointers into the skb data. Otherwise they might cause an
use-after-free.

But is hard to identify such case when it is not clear that helpers are
actually using skb-reallocating functions.

Signed-off-by: Sven Eckelmann <[email protected]>
---
 net/batman-adv/mesh-interface.c |  5 +++++
 net/batman-adv/multicast_forw.c | 10 ++++++++++
 net/batman-adv/routing.c        |  5 +++++
 3 files changed, 20 insertions(+)

diff --git a/net/batman-adv/mesh-interface.c b/net/batman-adv/mesh-interface.c
index 20582fe0..f1bfe2a5 100644
--- a/net/batman-adv/mesh-interface.c
+++ b/net/batman-adv/mesh-interface.c
@@ -57,6 +57,11 @@
  * @skb: packet buffer which should be modified
  * @len: number of bytes to add
  *
+ * Warning: This function may reallocate the skb data buffer via
+ * skb_cow_head(). Any pointer into the skb data (e.g. obtained
+ * from skb->data or eth_hdr()) before this call must be considered
+ * invalid afterwards and has to be reacquired.
+ *
  * Return: 0 on success or negative error number in case of failure
  */
 int batadv_skb_head_push(struct sk_buff *skb, unsigned int len)
diff --git a/net/batman-adv/multicast_forw.c b/net/batman-adv/multicast_forw.c
index d8374ef5..ccd4ae15 100644
--- a/net/batman-adv/multicast_forw.c
+++ b/net/batman-adv/multicast_forw.c
@@ -1080,6 +1080,11 @@ unsigned int batadv_mcast_forw_packet_hdrlen(unsigned int num_dests)
  * Tries to expand an skb's headroom so that its head to tail is 1298
  * bytes (minimum IPv6 MTU + vlan ethernet header size) large.
  *
+ * Warning: This function may reallocate the skb data buffer via
+ * skb_cow() / skb_linearize(). Any pointer into the skb data (e.g.
+ * obtained from skb->data or eth_hdr()) before this call must be
+ * considered invalid afterwards and has to be reacquired.
+ *
  * Return: -EINVAL if the given skb's length is too large or -ENOMEM on memory
  * allocation failure. Otherwise, on success, zero is returned.
  */
@@ -1123,6 +1128,11 @@ static int batadv_mcast_forw_expand_head(struct batadv_priv *bat_priv,
  * that signaled interest in it, that is either via the translation table or the
  * according want-all flags, is attached accordingly.
  *
+ * Warning: This function may reallocate the skb data buffer via
+ * batadv_mcast_forw_expand_head(). Any pointer into the skb data (e.g.
+ * obtained from skb->data or eth_hdr()) before this call must be
+ * considered invalid afterwards and has to be reacquired.
+ *
  * Return: true on success, false otherwise.
  */
 bool batadv_mcast_forw_push(struct batadv_priv *bat_priv, struct sk_buff *skb,
diff --git a/net/batman-adv/routing.c b/net/batman-adv/routing.c
index cd290a7b..5193e370 100644
--- a/net/batman-adv/routing.c
+++ b/net/batman-adv/routing.c
@@ -172,6 +172,11 @@ bool batadv_window_protected(struct batadv_priv *bat_priv, s32 seq_num_diff,
  * @hard_iface: incoming hard interface
  * @header_len: minimal header length of packet type
  *
+ * Warning: This function may reallocate the skb data buffer via
+ * skb_cow() / skb_linearize(). Any pointer into the skb data (e.g.
+ * obtained from skb->data or eth_hdr()) before this call must be
+ * considered invalid afterwards and has to be reacquired.
+ *
  * Return: true when management preconditions are met, false otherwise
  */
 bool batadv_check_management_packet(struct sk_buff *skb,

---
base-commit: e8d6ecd5b27bf4ab6dfef96e01cd0057065ed396
change-id: 20260710-realloc-kernel-doc-87f99d90b802

Best regards,
--  
Sven Eckelmann <[email protected]>