CVE-2026-99201

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

netlink: avoid hashing the network namespace pointer

The netlink rhashtable key includes a raw struct net pointer and a user-controlled port ID. Both /proc/net/netlink and socket diagnostics expose the table's bucket order. By binding and rebinding chosen NETLINK USERSOCK port IDs, an unprivileged reader can distinguish equal buckets and recover the low bits of the Jenkins hash. Its 32-bit seed and the limited set of kernel-image slides can then be searched offline to recover the address of init net.

Use the namespace's unique, non-address net cookie in the comparison key instead. It is assigned before the per-net initializers run and remains unchanged for the namespace's lifetime. The lookup key and object hash are still built by netlink compare arg init(), keeping lookup, insertion, removal and rehashing consistent while preserving namespace separation. Neither public table walker needs to change.

Reading the socket's namespace cookie in netlink compare() is safe under RCU, including during namespace teardown. netlink release() removes the socket from the hash table and defers its final put with call rcu(). cleanup net() runs the per-net exit methods and waits for outstanding RCU callbacks with rcu barrier() before freeing namespace storage.

Unlike ns.ns id, net cookie is also available and initialized during setup net() in older stable kernels, making the change straightforward to backport to v5.15 and later.