Executive brief
A vulnerability in the Linux kernel's Intel 'ice' network driver could cause a system warning or kernel panic when using virtual machine passthrough configurations. This occurs when a network interface is passed to a virtual machine without its associated timing controller, leading to an unexpected internal error state. While primarily a stability issue, it can disrupt operations in virtualized environments relying on high-performance networking.
Technical details
A vulnerability in the 'ice' driver's PTP (Precision Time Protocol) implementation occurs when a Physical Function (PF) that does not own the source timer is passed through via VFIO to a virtual machine. In this configuration, the PTP controlling PF (adapter->ctrl_pf) remains uninitialized. When ice_ptp_setup_pf() calls ice_get_ctrl_ptp(), it returns NULL, which incorrectly triggers a WARN_ON() macro. While the behavior is expected for this hardware configuration, the kernel's handling of the missing controller can lead to system instability or log flooding. The fix replaces the WARN_ON() with a graceful informational message and returns -EOPNOTSUPP.
Affected products
- Linux Linux Kernel ice driver versions using ice_adapter for PTP shared data
Timeline
- 2026-02-01: other: Patch authored
- 2026-04-06: patched: Mainline kernel patch committed
- 2026-05-08: advisory: CVE published