# Re: \[PATCH v1\] net/mlx5e: IPoIB: Fix race in QPN to netdev mapping

- From: Dragos Tatulea \<dtatulea@nvidia.com\>
- Date: 2026-11-02 10:19:50 
- List: netdev
- Page: https://ratatoskr.run/netdev/2026/11/17843178
- Thread: https://ratatoskr.run/netdev/2026/11/17842233/t.md

```text
On 02.11.26 08:41, Binbin Deng wrote:
> The QPN-to-netdev hash table is protected by ht_lock, but the NAPI lookup
> path traverses and dereferences nodes without taking that lock.  A child
> interface teardown can therefore remove and free the node while the parent
> RQ is still processing completions for that child:
> 
> CPU0                                    CPU1
> mlx5i_pkey_get_netdev()
> node = mlx5i_find_qpn_to_netdev_node()
>                                         mlx5i_pkey_del_qpn()
>                                         node = mlx5i_find_qpn_to_netdev_node()
>                                         spin_lock_bh(&ht->ht_lock)
>                                         hlist_del_init(&node->hlist)
>                                         spin_unlock_bh(&ht->ht_lock)
>                                         kfree(node)
> read node->netdev or node->hlist.next
> 
> At that point CPU0 is reading freed memory.  The race is reachable when a
> PKEY child interface goes down while its completions are still queued on
> the shared parent RQ; this is the same lifetime case already described by
> the RX path comment.  It can lead to a KASAN use-after-free, corruption of
> the RX path, or a panic.
> 
> Take ht_lock around hash lookups, and keep the deletion lookup and unlink
> in one critical section.  The NAPI path copies the netdev pointer while
> the lock prevents the mapping node from being freed.
> 
> Found during a static-analysis-assisted audit: candidate sites were
> surfaced by a Coccinelle rule, and the reader/writer paths were
> confirmed by deep code inspection. Due to a lack of hardware
> infrastructure, the issue was not observed at runtime.
> 
> Fixes: 7e7f4780c340 ("net/mlx5e: IPoIB, Use hash-table to map between QPN to child netdev")
> Assisted-by: Coccinelle
> Signed-off-by: Binbin Deng <redacted>
Already WIP by Prathamesh:
https://lore.kernel.org/all/20261031225749.14214-1-prathameshdeshpande7@gmail.com/

Thanks,
Dragos

```