tcp: initialize standalone TCP-AO response padding
authorYizhou Zhao <zhaoyz24@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn>
Mon, 13 Jul 2026 10:56:30 +0000 (18:56 +0800)
committerJakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>
Tue, 21 Jul 2026 22:24:36 +0000 (15:24 -0700)
commite1a9d3cc11829c5414a75eb39c704f461936eb24
tree88b8425967e08a57eed06f019e7c4ed111357dde
parentff194cffd586cbd4cc49eccb002c65f2a902a277
tcp: initialize standalone TCP-AO response padding

tcp_v4_send_ack() and tcp_v6_send_response() construct standalone TCP
responses with TCP-AO options.  The option length carries the actual MAC
length, but the TCP header length includes the option rounded up to a
four-byte boundary.

tcp_ao_hash_hdr() writes the MAC only.  Thus, when the MAC length is not
four-byte aligned, the one to three bytes after the MAC are left
uninitialized and may be transmitted.  For the normal TCP-AO hashing
mode, those bytes also have to be initialized before computing the MAC.

Initialize only the alignment padding in the TCP-AO branches, before
hashing the header.  Use TCPOPT_NOP, as in the normal TCP-AO output path.
This avoids adding work to non-AO TCP responses while preserving a valid
authenticated header.

Fixes: decde2586b34 ("net/tcp: Add TCP-AO sign to twsk")
Fixes: da7dfaa6d6f7 ("net/tcp: Consistently align TCP-AO option in the header")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Reported-by: Yizhou Zhao <zhaoyz24@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn>
Reported-by: Yuxiang Yang <yangyx22@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn>
Reported-by: Ao Wang <wangao@seu.edu.cn>
Reported-by: Xuewei Feng <fengxw06@126.com>
Reported-by: Qi Li <qli01@tsinghua.edu.cn>
Reported-by: Ke Xu <xuke@tsinghua.edu.cn>
Suggested-by: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Yizhou Zhao <zhaoyz24@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn>
Reviewed-by: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260713105631.8616-1-zhaoyz24@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn
Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>
net/ipv4/tcp_ipv4.c
net/ipv6/tcp_ipv6.c