Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] ipv6: fix memory leak in __ip6_make_skb() when queue is empty

From: Willem de Bruijn <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2026 10:59:45 -0400

Mingyu Wang wrote:
> During fuzzing with failslab enabled, a memory leak was observed in the
> IPv6 UDP send path.
> 
> The root cause resides in __ip6_make_skb(). In extremely rare cases
> (such as fault injection or specific empty payload conditions),

Can you elaborate on this? Which fault injection lets
__ip6_append_data succeed without writing data?

> __ip6_append_data() may succeed but leave the socket's write queue
> empty.
> 
> When __ip6_make_skb() is subsequently called, __skb_dequeue(queue)
> returns NULL. The previous logic handled this by executing a 'goto out;',
> which completely bypassed the call to ip6_cork_release(cork).
> 
> Since the 'cork' structure actively holds a reference to the routing
> entry (dst_entry) and potentially other allocated options, skipping
> the release cleanly leaks these resources.
> 
> Fix this by introducing an 'out_cork_release' label and jumping to it
> when skb is NULL, ensuring the cork state is always properly cleaned up.
> The now-unused 'out' label is also removed to prevent compiler warnings.
> 
> Fixes: 1da177e4c3f4 ("Linux-2.6.12-rc2")

I think this is 

Fixes: 6422398c2ab0 ("ipv6: introduce ipv6_make_skb")

> Reported-by: [email-masked]
> Signed-off-by: Mingyu Wang <[email-masked]>