bpf: Fix a btf decl_tag bug when tagging a function

published 2025-02-26 20 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2022-54998

cvss: 5.5; version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.3%; EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 17%
public exploits: 0; none known

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

syzbot reported a btf decl_tag bug with stack trace below:

general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000000: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000000007] CPU: 0 PID: 3592 Comm: syz-executor914 Not tainted 5.16.0-syzkaller-11424-gb7892f7d5cb2 #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 01/01/2011 RIP: 0010:btf_type_vlen include/linux/btf.h:231 [inline] RIP: 0010:btf_decl_tag_resolve+0x83e/0xaa0 kernel/bpf/btf.c:3910 ... Call Trace: <TASK> btf_resolve+0x251/0x1020 kernel/bpf/btf.c:4198 btf_check_all_types kernel/bpf/btf.c:4239 [inline] btf_parse_type_sec kernel/bpf/btf.c:4280 [inline] btf_parse kernel/bpf/btf.c:4513 [inline] btf_new_fd+0x19fe/0x2370 kernel/bpf/btf.c:6047 bpf_btf_load kernel/bpf/syscall.c:4039 [inline] __sys_bpf+0x1cbb/0x5970 kernel/bpf/syscall.c:4679 __do_sys_bpf kernel/bpf/syscall.c:4738 [inline] __se_sys_bpf kernel/bpf/syscall.c:4736 [inline] __x64_sys_bpf+0x75/0xb0 kernel/bpf/syscall.c:4736 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x35/0xb0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae

The kasan error is triggered with an illegal BTF like below: type 0: void type 1: int type 2: decl_tag to func type 3 type 3: func to func_proto type 8 The total number of types is 4 and the type 3 is illegal since its func_proto type is out of range.

Currently, the target type of decl_tag can be struct/union, var or func. Both struct/union and var implemented their own 'resolve' callback functions and hence handled properly in kernel. But func type doesn't have 'resolve' callback function. When btf_decl_tag_resolve() tries to check func type, it tries to get vlen of its func_proto type, which triggered the above kasan error.

To fix the issue, btf_decl_tag_resolve() needs to do btf_func_check() before trying to accessing func_proto type. In the current implementation, func type is checked with btf_func_check() in the main checking function btf_check_all_types(). To fix the above kasan issue, let us implement 'resolve' callback func type properly. The 'resolve' callback will be also called in btf_check_all_types() for func types.

Patch / fix

fixed in 1 distros 3 links 3

Linux Linux 5.16.19, 5.17.2, 5.18

debian red hat suse

linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.17.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49228

kernel RHEL 9 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1
perf RHEL 9 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1
bpftool RHEL 9 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1
kernel-core RHEL 9 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1
kernel-tools RHEL 9 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1
python3-perf RHEL 9 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1
kernel-modules RHEL 9 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1
kernel-zfcpdump RHEL 9 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1

red hat advisories RHSA-2022:8267

kernel-64kb SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS 5.14.21-150500.55.100.1
kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150500.55.100.1
kernel-source SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.5 +2 more 5.14.21-150500.55.100.1
kernel-default SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.5 +3 more 5.14.21-150500.55.100.1
kernel-obs-build SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150500.55.100.1
kernel-default-base SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.5 +2 more 5.14.21-150500.55.100.1.150500.6.47.1
kernel-rt SLE Micro 5.5 5.14.21-150500.13.91.1
kernel-source-rt SLE Micro 5.5 5.14.21-150500.13.91.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:1241-1 SUSE-SU-2025:1176-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2022-49228 updated 2026-11-06 cvss 5.5

kernel: bpf: Fix a btf decl_tag bug when tagging a function

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 kernel-rt, kernel-rt-kvm, kernel-rt-core, kernel-rt-modules, kernel-rt-debug-kvm, kernel-rt-debug-core, +12 more
affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
Red Hat CodeReady Linux Builder (v. 9) kernel-debuginfo-common-s390x 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-debuginfo-common-aarch64 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-debuginfo-common-ppc64le 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) perf 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-devel-matched 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-debug-devel-matched 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-debuginfo-common-s390x 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-zfcpdump-devel-matched 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, +2 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 9) kernel 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, bpftool 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-core 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-tools 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, python3-perf 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, kernel-modules 5.14.0-162.6.1.el9_1, +14 more
fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2022:8267
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.26% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 17% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
NVD	3.1	5.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness

CWE-476 NULL Pointer Dereference

Technology feeds

Linux kernel rss critical rss

References

Sources

CVE List CVE-2022-49228
NVD CVE-2022-49228

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary