Subject: [PATCH v20 net] net: pppoe: avoid zero-length arrays in struct pppoe_hdr

From: Eric Woudstra <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2026 16:50:30 +0100

Jakub Kicinski suggested following patch:

W=1 C=1 GCC build gives us:

net/bridge/netfilter/nf_conntrack_bridge.c: note: in included file (through
../include/linux/if_pppox.h, ../include/uapi/linux/netfilter_bridge.h,
../include/linux/netfilter_bridge.h): include/uapi/linux/if_pppox.h:
153:29: warning: array of flexible structures

It doesn't like that hdr has a zero-length array which overlaps proto.
The kernel code doesn't currently need those arrays.

PPPoE connection is functional after applying this patch.

Reviewed-by: Nikolay Aleksandrov <[email-masked]>
Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <[email-masked]>
Signed-off-by: Eric Woudstra <[email-masked]>

---

This version was last send in:

[PATCH v19 nf-next 1/5] net: pppoe: avoid zero-length arrays in
struct pppoe_hdr

Although it is needed to prevent warnings caused by my patches send to
nf-next, it was asked to send this patch separately to netdev.

 drivers/net/ppp/pppoe.c       | 2 +-
 include/uapi/linux/if_pppox.h | 4 ++++
 2 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/net/ppp/pppoe.c b/drivers/net/ppp/pppoe.c
index 4275b393a454..7900cc3212a5 100644
--- a/drivers/net/ppp/pppoe.c
+++ b/drivers/net/ppp/pppoe.c
@@ -885,7 +885,7 @@ static int pppoe_sendmsg(struct socket *sock, struct msghdr *m,
 	skb->protocol = cpu_to_be16(ETH_P_PPP_SES);
 
 	ph = skb_put(skb, total_len + sizeof(struct pppoe_hdr));
-	start = (char *)&ph->tag[0];
+	start = (char *)ph + sizeof(*ph);
 
 	error = memcpy_from_msg(start, m, total_len);
 	if (error < 0) {
diff --git a/include/uapi/linux/if_pppox.h b/include/uapi/linux/if_pppox.h
index 9abd80dcc46f..29b804aa7474 100644
--- a/include/uapi/linux/if_pppox.h
+++ b/include/uapi/linux/if_pppox.h
@@ -122,7 +122,9 @@ struct sockaddr_pppol2tpv3in6 {
 struct pppoe_tag {
 	__be16 tag_type;
 	__be16 tag_len;
+#ifndef __KERNEL__
 	char tag_data[];
+#endif
 } __attribute__ ((packed));
 
 /* Tag identifiers */
@@ -150,7 +152,9 @@ struct pppoe_hdr {
 	__u8 code;
 	__be16 sid;
 	__be16 length;
+#ifndef __KERNEL__
 	struct pppoe_tag tag[];
+#endif
 } __packed;
 
 /* Length of entire PPPoE + PPP header */
-- 
2.53.0