Skip to content
OpenAdvisories
High · 7.8 CVE-2021-46958 EUVD-2021-33606GHSA-gmfg-g4f3-5fg9

btrfs: fix race between transaction aborts and fsyncs leading to use-after-free

Published Feb 27, 2024 · Updated Aug 5, 2026 · Assigned by Linux

Vendor: Linux Product: Linux Package: linux Package: linux-allwinner-5.19 Package: linux-aws-5.0 Package: linux-aws-5.11 Package: linux-aws-5.13 Package: linux-aws-5.19 Package: linux-aws-5.3 Package: linux-aws-5.8 Package: linux-aws-6.2 Package: linux-azure Package: linux-azure-5.11 Package: linux-azure-5.13 Package: linux-azure-5.19 Package: linux-azure-5.3 Package: linux-azure-5.8 Package: linux-azure-6.2 Package: linux-azure-edge Package: linux-azure-fde Package: linux-azure-fde-5.19 Package: linux-azure-fde-6.2 Package: linux-gcp Package: linux-gcp-5.11 Package: linux-gcp-5.13 Package: linux-gcp-5.19 Package: linux-gcp-5.3 Package: linux-gcp-5.8 Package: linux-gcp-6.2 Package: linux-gke Package: linux-gke-4.15 Package: linux-gke-5.15 Package: linux-gke-5.4 Package: linux-gkeop-5.4 Package: linux-hwe Package: linux-hwe-5.11 Package: linux-hwe-5.13 Package: linux-hwe-5.19 Package: linux-hwe-5.8 Package: linux-hwe-6.2 Package: linux-hwe-edge Package: linux-intel-5.13 Package: linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.19 Package: linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.2 Package: linux-nvidia-6.2 Package: linux-oem Package: linux-oem-5.10 Package: linux-oem-5.13 Package: linux-oem-5.14 Package: linux-oem-5.17 Package: linux-oem-5.6 Package: linux-oem-6.0 Package: linux-oem-6.1 Package: linux-oracle-5.0 Package: linux-oracle-5.11 Package: linux-oracle-5.13 Package: linux-oracle-5.3 Package: linux-oracle-5.8 Package: linux-raspi2 Package: linux-riscv Package: linux-riscv-5.11 Package: linux-riscv-5.19 Package: linux-riscv-5.8 Package: linux-starfive-5.19 Package: linux-starfive-6.2 Platform: Linux Ecosystem: Debian Ecosystem: Ubuntu

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

btrfs: fix race between transaction aborts and fsyncs leading to use-after-free

There is a race between a task aborting a transaction during a commit,
a task doing an fsync and the transaction kthread, which leads to an
use-after-free of the log root tree. When this happens, it results in a
stack trace like the following:

BTRFS info (device dm-0): forced readonly
BTRFS warning (device dm-0): Skipping commit of aborted transaction.
BTRFS: error (device dm-0) in cleanup_transaction:1958: errno=-5 IO failure
BTRFS warning (device dm-0): lost page write due to IO error on /dev/mapper/error-test (-5)
BTRFS warning (device dm-0): Skipping commit of aborted transaction.
BTRFS warning (device dm-0): direct IO failed ino 261 rw 0,0 sector 0xa4e8 len 4096 err no 10
BTRFS error (device dm-0): error writing primary super block to device 1
BTRFS warning (device dm-0): direct IO failed ino 261 rw 0,0 sector 0x12e000 len 4096 err no 10
BTRFS warning (device dm-0): direct IO failed ino 261 rw 0,0 sector 0x12e008 len 4096 err no 10
BTRFS warning (device dm-0): direct IO failed ino 261 rw 0,0 sector 0x12e010 len 4096 err no 10
BTRFS: error (device dm-0) in write_all_supers:4110: errno=-5 IO failure (1 errors while writing supers)
BTRFS: error (device dm-0) in btrfs_sync_log:3308: errno=-5 IO failure
general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0x6b6b6b6b6b6b6b68: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP DEBUG_PAGEALLOC PTI
CPU: 2 PID: 2458471 Comm: fsstress Not tainted 5.12.0-rc5-btrfs-next-84 #1
Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.14.0-0-g155821a1990b-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014
RIP: 0010:__mutex_lock+0x139/0xa40
Code: c0 74 19 (...)
RSP: 0018:ffff9f18830d7b00 EFLAGS: 00010202
RAX: 6b6b6b6b6b6b6b68 RBX: 0000000000000001 RCX: 0000000000000002
RDX: ffffffffb9c54d13 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: 0000000000000000
RBP: ffff9f18830d7bc0 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000
R10: ffff9f18830d7be0 R11: 0000000000000001 R12: ffff8c6cd199c040
R13: ffff8c6c95821358 R14: 00000000fffffffb R15: ffff8c6cbcf01358
FS: 00007fa9140c2b80(0000) GS:ffff8c6fac600000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
CR2: 00007fa913d52000 CR3: 000000013d2b4003 CR4: 0000000000370ee0
DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000
DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400
Call Trace:
? __btrfs_handle_fs_error+0xde/0x146 [btrfs]
? btrfs_sync_log+0x7c1/0xf20 [btrfs]
? btrfs_sync_log+0x7c1/0xf20 [btrfs]
btrfs_sync_log+0x7c1/0xf20 [btrfs]
btrfs_sync_file+0x40c/0x580 [btrfs]
do_fsync+0x38/0x70
__x64_sys_fsync+0x10/0x20
do_syscall_64+0x33/0x80
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae
RIP: 0033:0x7fa9142a55c3
Code: 8b 15 09 (...)
RSP: 002b:00007fff26278d48 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 000000000000004a
RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000563c83cb4560 RCX: 00007fa9142a55c3
RDX: 00007fff26278cb0 RSI: 00007fff26278cb0 RDI: 0000000000000005
RBP: 0000000000000005 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: 00007fff26278d5c
R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 0000000000000340
R13: 00007fff26278de0 R14: 00007fff26278d96 R15: 0000563c83ca57c0
Modules linked in: btrfs dm_zero dm_snapshot dm_thin_pool (...)
---[ end trace ee2f1b19327d791d ]---

The steps that lead to this crash are the following:

1) We are at transaction N;

2) We have two tasks with a transaction handle attached to transaction N.
Task A and Task B. Task B is doing an fsync;

3) Task B is at btrfs_sync_log(), and has saved fs_info->log_root_tree
into a local variable named 'log_root_tree' at the top of
btrfs_sync_log(). Task B is about to call write_all_supers(), but
before that...

4) Task A calls btrfs_commit_transaction(), and after it sets the
transaction state to TRANS_STATE_COMMIT_START, an error happens before
it w
---truncated---

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
Linux Linux 5.7 5.10.36

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian 14 linux 5.10.38-1 —
Debian 13 linux 5.10.38-1 —
Debian 12 linux 5.10.38-1 —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS linux-riscv +20 No fix yet —
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS linux-gke +26 No fix yet —
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS linux-gcp +14 No fix yet —
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS linux-hwe-edge No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
SLES 15 SP3 kernel-64kb +7 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1489-1
SLES 15 SP3 kernel-default-base 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1.150300.18.92.5 SUSE-SU-2024:1489-1
SLES 15 SP2 kernel-default-base 5.3.18-150200.24.188.1.150200.9.95.3 SUSE-SU-2024:1454-1
SLES 15 SP2 kernel-docs +5 5.3.18-150200.24.188.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1454-1
SLES 12 SP5 kernel-azure +2 4.12.14-16.182.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1643-1
SLES 12 SP5 kernel-docs +4 4.12.14-122.216.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1870-1
Show 12 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
SLES for SAP 15 SP3 kernel-default-base 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1.150300.18.92.5 SUSE-SU-2024:1489-1
SLES for SAP 15 SP3 kernel-docs +5 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1489-1
SLES for SAP 15 SP2 kernel-default-base 5.3.18-150200.24.188.1.150200.9.95.3 SUSE-SU-2024:1454-1
SLES for SAP 15 SP2 kernel-docs +5 5.3.18-150200.24.188.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1454-1
SLES for SAP 12 SP5 kernel-azure +2 4.12.14-16.182.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1643-1
SLES for SAP 12 SP5 kernel-syms +2 4.12.14-122.216.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1870-1
SLE Real Time 12 SP5 kernel-rt +3 4.12.14-10.182.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1646-1
SLE Micro 5.2 kernel-default 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1489-1
SLE Micro 5.2 kernel-default-base 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1.150300.18.92.5 SUSE-SU-2024:1489-1
SLE Micro 5.2 kernel-rt +1 5.3.18-150300.166.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1465-1
SLE Micro 5.1 kernel-default 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1489-1
SLE Micro 5.1 kernel-default-base 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1.150300.18.92.5 SUSE-SU-2024:1489-1
SLE Micro 5.1 kernel-rt +1 5.3.18-150300.166.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1465-1
SLE Live Patching 15 SP3 kernel-default 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1489-1
SLE Live Patching 15 SP3 kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP3_Update_43 1-150300.7.3.5 SUSE-SU-2024:1489-1
SLE Live Patching 15 SP2 kernel-default 5.3.18-150200.24.188.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1454-1
SLE Live Patching 15 SP2 kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP2_Update_47 1-150200.5.3.3 SUSE-SU-2024:1454-1
SLE Live Patching 12 SP5 kernel-default 4.12.14-122.216.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1870-1
SLE Live Patching 12 SP5 kgraft-patch-SLE12-SP5_Update_56 1-8.3.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1870-1
SLE HPC 15 SP3 kernel-64kb +6 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1489-1
SLE HPC 15 SP3 kernel-default-base 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1.150300.18.92.5 SUSE-SU-2024:1489-1
SLE HPC 15 SP2 kernel-default-base 5.3.18-150200.24.188.1.150200.9.95.3 SUSE-SU-2024:1454-1
SLE HPC 15 SP2 kernel-docs +5 5.3.18-150200.24.188.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1454-1
SUSE Enterprise Storage 7.1 kernel-64kb +6 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1 SUSE-SU-2024:1489-1
SUSE Enterprise Storage 7.1 kernel-default-base 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1.150300.18.92.5 SUSE-SU-2024:1489-1

Advisories 7

References