qede: Fix NULL pointer dereference in TPA fragment processing

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: qede: Fix NULL pointer dereference in TPA fragment processing Under memory pressure, the qede driver encounters NULL pointer dereferences when processing TPA continuation fragments. Commit 8a8633978b84 ("qede: Add build_skb() support.") accidentally dropped the assignment of tpa_info->buffer.data in qede_tpa_start(). When memory pressure causes an SKB allocation failure in qede_tpa_start(), the driver sets tpa_start_fail = true and attempts to recycle the physical page later in qede_tpa_end() via qede_reuse_page(). However, because buffer.data was left uninitialized (NULL), qede_reuse_page() pushes a "ghost" BD (valid DMA mapping but NULL data pointer) back into the active Rx ring. The next time the hardware uses this ring slot, it passes a NULL page to qede_fill_frag_skb(), causing a kernel panic. Example crash from production system: BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at 0x8 RIP: qede_fill_frag_skb+0x96/0x430 [qede] Call Trace: qede_rx_int+0xb06/0x1de0 qede_poll+0x2f4/0x6c0 __napi_poll+0x2d/0x130 Fix the root cause by restoring the tpa_info->buffer.data assignment in qede_tpa_start(), ensuring valid pages are correctly tracked and recycled. Additionally, update the stale comment for struct qede_agg_info::buffer to reflect its current usage.

Source published

11 Sep 2026 19:43:56 UTC

Source modified

19 Oct 2026 08:48:02 UTC

Observed here

23 Oct 2026 15:48:27 UTC

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CVSS 3.1 · 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H