net: fix memory leak in skb_segment_list for GRO packets

When skb_segment_list() is called during packet forwarding, it handles
packets that were aggregated by the GRO engine.

Historically, the segmentation logic in skb_segment_list assumes that
individual segments are split from a parent SKB and may need to carry
their own socket memory accounting. Accordingly, the code transfers
truesize from the parent to the newly created segments.

Prior to commit ed4cccef64c1 ("gro: fix ownership transfer"), this
truesize subtraction in skb_segment_list() was valid because fragments
still carry a reference to the original socket.

However, commit ed4cccef64c1 ("gro: fix ownership transfer") changed
this behavior by ensuring that fraglist entries are explicitly
orphaned (skb->sk = NULL) to prevent illegal orphaning later in the
stack. This change meant that the entire socket memory charge remained
with the head SKB, but the corresponding accounting logic in
skb_segment_list() was never updated.

As a result, the current code unconditionally adds each fragment's
truesize to delta_truesize and subtracts it from the parent SKB. Since
the fragments are no longer charged to the socket, this subtraction
results in an effective under-count of memory when the head is freed.
This causes sk_wmem_alloc to remain non-zero, preventing socket
destruction and leading to a persistent memory leak.

The leak can be observed via KMEMLEAK when tearing down the networking
environment:

unreferenced object 0xffff8881e6eb9100 (size 2048):
  comm "ping", pid 6720, jiffies 4295492526
  backtrace:
    kmem_cache_alloc_noprof+0x5c6/0x800
    sk_prot_alloc+0x5b/0x220
    sk_alloc+0x35/0xa00
    inet6_create.part.0+0x303/0x10d0
    __sock_create+0x248/0x640
    __sys_socket+0x11b/0x1d0

Since skb_segment_list() is exclusively used for SKB_GSO_FRAGLIST
packets constructed by GRO, the truesize adjustment is removed.

The call to skb_release_head_state() must be preserved. As documented in
commit cf673ed0e057 ("net: fix fraglist segmentation reference count
leak"), it is still required to correctly drop references to SKB
extensions that may be overwritten during __copy_skb_header().

Fixes: ed4cccef64c1 ("gro: fix ownership transfer")
Signed-off-by: Mohammad Heib <mheib@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Willem de Bruijn <willemb@google.com>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260104213101.352887-1-mheib@redhat.com
Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>

0 files changed, 0 insertions, 0 deletions