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CVE-2023-54247

kernel: bpf: Silence a warning in btf_type_id_size()

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Severity

Low

Red Hat Product Security

4.4

CVSS 3.1

Review impact separately from score.

Published · December 30, 2025

Updated · June 30, 2026

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

bpf: Silence a warning in btf_type_id_size()

syzbot reported a warning in [1] with the following stacktrace: WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 5005 at kernel/bpf/btf.c:1988 btf_type_id_size+0x2d9/0x9d0 kernel/bpf/btf.c:1988 ... RIP: 0010:btf_type_id_size+0x2d9/0x9d0 kernel/bpf/btf.c:1988 ... Call Trace: <TASK> map_check_btf kernel/bpf/syscall.c:1024 [inline] map_create+0x1157/0x1860 kernel/bpf/syscall.c:1198 __sys_bpf+0x127f/0x5420 kernel/bpf/syscall.c:5040 __do_sys_bpf kernel/bpf/syscall.c:5162 [inline] __se_sys_bpf kernel/bpf/syscall.c:5160 [inline] __x64_sys_bpf+0x79/0xc0 kernel/bpf/syscall.c:5160 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x39/0xb0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd

With the following btf [1] DECL_TAG 'a' type_id=4 component_idx=-1 [2] PTR '(anon)' type_id=0 [3] TYPE_TAG 'a' type_id=2 [4] VAR 'a' type_id=3, linkage=static and when the bpf_attr.btf_key_type_id = 1 (DECL_TAG), the following WARN_ON_ONCE in btf_type_id_size() is triggered: if (WARN_ON_ONCE(!btf_type_is_modifier(size_type) && !btf_type_is_var(size_type))) return NULL;

Note that 'return NULL' is the correct behavior as we don't want a DECL_TAG type to be used as a btf_{key,value}_type_id even for the case like 'DECL_TAG -> STRUCT'. So there is no correctness issue here, we just want to silence warning.

To silence the warning, I added DECL_TAG as one of kinds in btf_type_nosize() which will cause btf_type_id_size() returning NULL earlier without the warning.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/[email protected]/

Statement

A local user can trigger kernel warnings in btf_type_id_size by passing a DECL_TAG type id as a BTF key or value type id during BPF map creation. The kernel already rejects this input by returning NULL, but the WARN_ON_ONCE generates noisy diagnostics that can spam logs and degrade system availability in extreme cases. For the CVSS the PR is N in the paranoid scenario because some systems allow unprivileged BPF syscalls or delegate BPF capabilities in containers. The issue is not network reachable and it is triggered via the local bpf syscall interface. Impact is limited to warning generation and potential log based denial of service rather than memory corruption.

CVSS score applicability

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.

Mitigation

No mitigation is specified in collected source.

CVSS / CWE

CVSS 3.1 · 4.4
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CWE-20 · Improper Input Validation