FAILED: patch "[PATCH] net: skb: fix cross-cache free of KFENCE-allocated skb head" failed to apply to 6.6-stable tree

The patch below does not apply to the 6.6-stable tree.
If someone wants it applied there, or to any other stable or longterm tree, then please email the backport, including the original git commit id to <[email protected]>.

To reproduce the conflict and resubmit, you may use the following commands:

git fetch https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/ linux-6.6.y
git checkout FETCH_HEAD
git cherry-pick -x 0f42e3f4fe2a58394e37241d02d9ca6ab7b7d516
# <resolve conflicts, build, test, etc.>
git commit -s
git send-email --to '<[email protected]>' --in-reply-to '2026041339-celery-ribbon-dc62@gregkh' --subject-prefix 'PATCH 6.6.y' HEAD^..

Possible dependencies:

thanks,

greg k-h

------------------ original commit in Linus's tree ------------------

From 0f42e3f4fe2a58394e37241d02d9ca6ab7b7d516 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jiayuan Chen <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2026 09:45:12 +0800
Subject: [PATCH] net: skb: fix cross-cache free of KFENCE-allocated skb head

SKB_SMALL_HEAD_CACHE_SIZE is intentionally set to a non-power-of-2 value (e.g. 704 on x86_64) to avoid collisions with generic kmalloc bucket sizes. This ensures that skb_kfree_head() can reliably use skb_end_offset to distinguish skb heads allocated from skb_small_head_cache vs. generic kmalloc caches.

However, when KFENCE is enabled, kfence_ksize() returns the exact requested allocation size instead of the slab bucket size. If a caller (e.g. bpf_test_init) allocates skb head data via kzalloc() and the requested size happens to equal SKB_SMALL_HEAD_CACHE_SIZE, then slab_build_skb() -> ksize() returns that exact value. After subtracting skb_shared_info overhead, skb_end_offset ends up matching SKB_SMALL_HEAD_HEADROOM, causing skb_kfree_head() to incorrectly free the object to skb_small_head_cache instead of back to the original kmalloc cache, resulting in a slab cross-cache free:

kmem_cache_free(skbuff_small_head): Wrong slab cache. Expected skbuff_small_head but got kmalloc-1k

Fix this by always calling kfree(head) in skb_kfree_head(). This keeps the free path generic and avoids allocator-specific misclassification for KFENCE objects.

index 0e217041958a..43ee86dcf2ea 100644
@@ -1083,10 +1083,7 @@ static int skb_pp_frag_ref(struct sk_buff *skb)
 
 static void skb_kfree_head(void *head, unsigned int end_offset)
 {
-	if (end_offset == SKB_SMALL_HEAD_HEADROOM)
-		kmem_cache_free(net_hotdata.skb_small_head_cache, head);
-	else
-		kfree(head);
+	kfree(head);
 }
 
 static void skb_free_head(struct sk_buff *skb)

From: Jiayuan Chen <[email protected]>

[ Upstream commit 0f42e3f4fe2a58394e37241d02d9ca6ab7b7d516 ]

SKB_SMALL_HEAD_CACHE_SIZE is intentionally set to a non-power-of-2 value (e.g. 704 on x86_64) to avoid collisions with generic kmalloc bucket sizes. This ensures that skb_kfree_head() can reliably use skb_end_offset to distinguish skb heads allocated from skb_small_head_cache vs. generic kmalloc caches.

However, when KFENCE is enabled, kfence_ksize() returns the exact requested allocation size instead of the slab bucket size. If a caller (e.g. bpf_test_init) allocates skb head data via kzalloc() and the requested size happens to equal SKB_SMALL_HEAD_CACHE_SIZE, then slab_build_skb() -> ksize() returns that exact value. After subtracting skb_shared_info overhead, skb_end_offset ends up matching SKB_SMALL_HEAD_HEADROOM, causing skb_kfree_head() to incorrectly free the object to skb_small_head_cache instead of back to the original kmalloc cache, resulting in a slab cross-cache free:

kmem_cache_free(skbuff_small_head): Wrong slab cache. Expected skbuff_small_head but got kmalloc-1k

Fix this by always calling kfree(head) in skb_kfree_head(). This keeps the free path generic and avoids allocator-specific misclassification for KFENCE objects.

---
 net/core/skbuff.c | 5 +----
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 4 deletions(-)

index 4c28954f915fa..c81ef99d39b04 100644
@@ -943,10 +943,7 @@ static bool skb_pp_recycle(struct sk_buff *skb, void *data, bool napi_safe)
 
 static void skb_kfree_head(void *head, unsigned int end_offset)
 {
-	if (end_offset == SKB_SMALL_HEAD_HEADROOM)
-		kmem_cache_free(skb_small_head_cache, head);
-	else
-		kfree(head);
+	kfree(head);
 }
 
 static void skb_free_head(struct sk_buff *skb, bool napi_safe)

2.53.0