__ieee80211_rx_handle_packet() resolves the link via ieee80211_rx_data_set_link() on the pubsta->mlo path but ignores the helper's return value. Inside the helper, rx->link = rcu_dereference(rx->sdata->link[link_id]); can leave rx->link NULL if link_id references a slot already cleared by ieee80211_vif_set_links() during station-initiated ML reconfiguration (see mlme.c's ieee80211_ml_reconfiguration(), which invalidates sdata->link[] before the matching ieee80211_sta_remove_link() loop walks the link-sta hash). RX dispatch still resolves a link_sta from the hash and then drops into ieee80211_prepare_and_rx_handle(), which dereferences link->conf->addr. Every other user site of ieee80211_rx_data_set_link() checks the return and bails on failure; only this branch did not. Mirror the safe pattern. Fixes: e66b7920aa5a ("wifi: mac80211: fix initialization of rx->link and rx->link_sta") Signed-off-by: Michael Bommarito Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-7 --- Notes for reviewers (not part of the commit): Found by static audit of unchecked return values on ieee80211_rx_data_set_link() call sites. The non-pubsta arm was already fixed upstream by commit 32d340ae6758 ("wifi: mac80211: fix receiving MLO frames in the non-fast-path"); the pubsta arm was missed, and this patch mirrors the same shape. Runtime evidence: - Synthetic kernel-side A/B: on parent commit e66b7920aa5a.. (pre-fix) forcing sdata->link[1] == NULL while sta->link[1] stays live causes ieee80211_rx_data_set_link() to return 0 and ieee80211_prepare_and_rx_handle() to NULL-deref link->conf->addr; with the patch applied the guard drops the frame instead. - Source-level race window confirmed observationally: an instrumented pre-fix UML run with real hostapd + wpa_supplicant MLO and station-initiated SETUP_LINK_RECONFIG hits "sdata->link[1] == NULL while sta_valid_links still carries bit 1" on every reconfiguration attempt, inside ieee80211_setup_link_reconfig() between ieee80211_vif_set_links() and the per-link ieee80211_sta_remove_link() loop. - That same instrumented run does not itself crash, for two reasons independent of this bug: mac80211_hwsim feeds RX via ieee80211_rx_napi(hw, NULL, skb), so the pubsta arm at rx.c:5335 is unreachable from hwsim (frames take the already-fixed non-pubsta for_each_sta_info arm), and UML is single-CPU so RX softirq cannot interleave with the mlme reconfig sequence. Real MLO-capable drivers (iwlwifi, mt76) do populate pubsta on their fast RX paths, and SMP hardware gives the race the micro-window it needs. Benjamin Berg's 2026-02 RFC v2 "wifi: mac80211: refactor RX link_id and station handling" (20260223133818.9f5550ab445f.I...@changeid) touches the same code and may supersede or subsume this patch; happy to fold / rebase / drop. net/mac80211/rx.c | 4 +++- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/net/mac80211/rx.c b/net/mac80211/rx.c index 11d6c56c9d7e..e0ab4852c0c6 100644 --- a/net/mac80211/rx.c +++ b/net/mac80211/rx.c @@ -5332,7 +5332,9 @@ static void __ieee80211_rx_handle_packet(struct ieee80211_hw *hw, if (!link_sta) goto out; - ieee80211_rx_data_set_link(&rx, link_sta->link_id); + if (!ieee80211_rx_data_set_link(&rx, + link_sta->link_id)) + goto out; } if (ieee80211_prepare_and_rx_handle(&rx, skb, true)) -- 2.53.0