Hello Matthew,

Thanks for the lightning-fast review!

We were originally on 24.10 for a good chunk of development (recently
25.06, thank you for all the IPv6 work!), and the segfault from MAC address
sync on non-Ethernet interfaces on RTM_NEWLINK was present in 24.10. Our
apologies, we did not notice the fact our addition in lcp_interface.c was
redundant due to the check higher in the function (we made this addition to
try to hunt for other potential similar bugs, but did not encounter a fault
here). I've re-submitted the patch with only the new check in lcp_router.c
present.

Let me know if you have any notes, and all the best,
-Nat

*Nathael Leblanc*
CEO & Co-Founder, Joust Security

+1.514.800.8071 | [email protected]

www.joustsec.com




On Thu, Mar 19, 2026 at 12:24 PM Matthew Smith via lists.fd.io <mgsmith=
[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi Nat,
>
> I added a comment to the review. It's not clear to me how you're
> encountering a seg fault. Can you describe a sequence of configuration
> commands that would reproduce this behavior?
>
> There was a patch added by Stanislav Zaikin that first appeared in VPP
> 23.06 which should prevent a seg fault from occurring in the instances that
> you described -
> https://github.com/FDio/vpp/commit/fdf917e8f8dd5abb3f9263c9cb3fd9ce00563b60.
> In lcp_itf_pair_create(), it validates that hw->hw_class_index ==
> ethernet_hw_interface_class.index when host_if_type == LCP_ITF_HOST_TAP.
> The check you added to lcp_itf_pair_create() comes after this validation
> has already occurred and is inside an 'if (host_if_type
> != LCP_ITF_HOST_TUN)', which implies that host_if_type == LCP_ITF_HOST_TAP.
> So it seems like it should already be guaranteed that hw->hw_class_index ==
> ethernet_hw_interface_class.index at that point.
>
> It seems like the only way you could encounter a seg fault in the spots
> that your patch touches would be if you created a linux-cp interface pair
> for an L3 tunnel interface but used host_if_type LCP_ITF_HOST_TAP instead
> of LCP_ITF_HOST_TUN. That should not have been possible since VPP 23.06. Is
> the problem occurring on an older version of VPP?
>
> Thanks,
> -Matt
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 18, 2026 at 10:52 PM Nathael Leblanc via lists.fd.io
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Good evening everyone,
>>
>> Could I please request a patch review on
>> https://gerrit.fd.io/r/c/vpp/+/45271 -- I promise it's a short one but a
>> good one!
>>
>> The patch addresses a segmentation fault in the linux-cp plugin that is
>> triggered during routing convergence or IP assignment on strictly-Layer3
>> tunnel interfaces (e.g., in our use case, WireGuard interfaces).
>>
>> The issue stems from LCP assuming the underlying `vnet_hw_interface_t`
>> possesses an Ethernet hardware class. For L3 interfaces:
>>
>>    1. In `lcp_itf_pair_create`, indexing into `ethernet_main.interfaces`
>>    with the tunnel's `hw->hw_instance` leads to type confusion and an
>>    out-of-bounds read.
>>    2. In `lcp_router_link_addr`, unconditionally comparing the MAC
>>    address results in an invalid memory read and a downstream "Secondary MAC
>>    Addresses not supported" panic.
>>
>> The patch adds a hardware class guard (`hw->hw_class_index ==
>> ethernet_hw_interface_class.index`) before attempting L2 operations. This
>> bypasses MAC synchronization for non-broadcast/L3 tunnels while preserving
>> normal behavior for standard DPDK, RDMA, AF_PACKET, and Loopback interfaces.
>>
>> Feedback and reviews are appreciated.
>>
>> Thank you,
>> -Nat
>>
>> *Nathael Leblanc*
>> CEO & Co-Founder, Joust Security
>>
>> +1.514.800.8071 | [email protected]
>>
>> www.joustsec.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
> 
>
>
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