On Thu, Jul 16, 2026 at 2:20 PM xietangxin [off-list ref] wrote:

[BUG] vlan: skb_under_panic when toggling NETIF_F_HW_VLAN_CTAG_TX on lower device

Hi all,

We encountered a skb_under_panic triggered by toggling
NETIF_F_HW_VLAN_CTAG_TX on the lower device while a VLAN device is
up and sending traffic.

Call trace
==========

 skbuff: skb_under_panic: text:ffffc0d2900283d8 len:74 put:14
  head:ffff334820249c00 data:ffff334820249bfe tail:0x48 end:0xc0 dev:vlan4
 ------------[ cut here ]------------
 kernel BUG at net/core/skbuff.c:116!
 Internal error: Oops - BUG: 00000000f2000800 [#1] SMP
 Call trace:
  skb_panic+0xcc/0xd0
  __skb_checksum+0x0/0x480
  eth_header+0x48/0x1a0
  vlan_dev_hard_header+0xd0/0x284
  neigh_connected_output+0x16c/0x20c
  ip6_finish_output2+0x4b4/0xd74
  __ip6_finish_output.part.0+0x1ac/0x3b0
  ip6_finish_output+0x160/0x200
  ip6_output+0x13c/0x294
  ndisc_send_skb+0x41c/0x6f0
  ndisc_send_rs+0xac/0x3b0
  addrconf_rs_timer+0x42c/0x660
  call_timer_fn+0x54/0x290
  expire_timers+0x26c/0x420

Reproducer
==========

 # Create veth pair (NETIF_F_HW_VLAN_CTAG_TX is ON by default)
 ip link add veth0 type veth peer name veth1
 ip link set veth0 up
 ip link set veth1 up

 # Turn off HW VLAN TX offload on lower device
 ethtool -K veth0 tx-vlan-hw-insert off

 # Create VLAN device on veth0
 # At this point: header_ops = &vlan_header_ops, hard_header_len = 18
 ip link add link veth0 name veth0.10 type vlan id 10 reorder_hdr off
 ip addr add 192.168.10.1/24 dev veth0.10
 ip link set veth0.10 up

 # Turn HW VLAN TX offload back ON on lower device
 # This triggers NETDEV_FEAT_CHANGE -> vlan_transfer_features()
 # hard_header_len changes from 18 to 14, but header_ops is NOT updated
 ethtool -K veth0 tx-vlan-hw-insert on

 # When a packet is sent through veth0.10
 # - skb is allocated based on hard_header_len=14 -> ~16 bytes
 # - vlan_dev_hard_header() pushes VLAN_HLEN(4) + ETH_HLEN(14) = 18 bytes
 # - skb_under_panic!


Any feedback or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

This rings a bell, I thought we already fixed this issue long ago :/

I would suggest we always add VLAN_HLEN even if not (yet) needed.

diff --git a/net/8021q/vlan.c b/net/8021q/vlan.c
index 2b74ed56eb166d52c3351768d9dfedc7b2c8ec2d..d7f90b3b2bb3aadb2c466891720a7f407d0bc34b

100644

--- a/net/8021q/vlan.c
+++ b/net/8021q/vlan.c

@@ -323,10 +323,7 @@ static void vlan_transfer_features(struct net_device *dev,

        netif_inherit_tso_max(vlandev, dev);

-       if (vlan_hw_offload_capable(dev->features, vlan->vlan_proto))
-               vlandev->hard_header_len = dev->hard_header_len;
-       else
-               vlandev->hard_header_len = dev->hard_header_len + VLAN_HLEN;
+       vlandev->hard_header_len = dev->hard_header_len + VLAN_HLEN;

 #if IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_FCOE)
        vlandev->fcoe_ddp_xid = dev->fcoe_ddp_xid;

A kind-of-similar change is needed in net/8021q/vlan_dev.c