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TI-2023-29217 Aliases CVE-2023-52896GHSA-7g59-fcf3-5hj5

btrfs: fix race between quota rescan and disable leading to NULL pointer deref

Priority LOW 21CWE-476Published · Updated

Key facts

Attack vector
Local
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Attack complexity
High
Impact type
Denial of service
Confidentiality · integrity · availability
None · None · High
Fix status
Partial Red Hat: 2 without a fix

Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · NVD. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat. Impact type from CWE-476.

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: fix race between quota rescan and disable leading to NULL pointer deref If we have one task trying to start the quota rescan worker while another one is trying to disable quotas, we can end up hitting a race that results in the quota rescan worker doing a NULL pointer dereference. The steps for this are the following: 1) Quotas are enabled; 2) Task A calls the quota rescan ioctl and enters btrfs_qgroup_rescan(). It calls qgroup_rescan_init() which returns 0 (success) and then joins a transaction and commits it; 3) Task B calls the quota disable ioctl and enters btrfs_quota_disable(). It clears the bit BTRFS_FS_QUOTA_ENABLED from fs_info->flags and calls btrfs_qgroup_wait_for_completion(), which returns immediately since the rescan worker is not yet running. Then it starts a transaction and locks fs_info->qgroup_ioctl_lock; 4) Task A queues the rescan worker, by calling btrfs_queue_work(); 5) The rescan worker starts, and calls rescan_should_stop() at the start of its while loop, which results in 0 iterations of the loop, since the flag BTRFS_FS_QUOTA_ENABLED was cleared from fs_info->flags by task B at step 3); 6) Task B sets fs_info->quota_root to NULL; 7) The rescan worker tries to start a transaction and uses fs_info->quota_root as the root argument for btrfs_start_transaction(). This results in a NULL pointer dereference down the call chain of btrfs_start_transaction(). The stack trace is something like the one reported in Link tag below: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000041: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000208-0x000000000000020f] CPU: 1 PID: 34 Comm: kworker/u4:2 Not tainted 6.1.0-syzkaller-13872-gb6bb9676f216 #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 10/26/2022 Workqueue: btrfs-qgroup-rescan btrfs_work_helper RIP: 0010:start_transaction+0x48/0x10f0 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:564 Code: 48 89 fb 48 (...) RSP: 0018:ffffc90000ab7ab0 EFLAGS: 00010206 RAX: 0000000000000041 RBX: 0000000000000208 RCX: ffff88801779ba80 RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000001 RDI: 0000000000000000 RBP: dffffc0000000000 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: fffff52000156f5d R10: fffff52000156f5d R11: 1ffff92000156f5c R12: 0000000000000000 R13: 0000000000000001 R14: 0000000000000001 R15: 0000000000000003 FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff8880b9900000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00007f2bea75b718 CR3: 000000001d0cc000 CR4: 00000000003506e0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 Call Trace: <TASK> btrfs_qgroup_rescan_worker+0x3bb/0x6a0 fs/btrfs/qgroup.c:3402 btrfs_work_helper+0x312/0x850 fs/btrfs/async-thread.c:280 process_one_work+0x877/0xdb0 kernel/workqueue.c:2289 worker_thread+0xb14/0x1330 kernel/workqueue.c:2436 kthread+0x266/0x300 kernel/kthread.c:376 ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x30 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:308 </TASK> Modules linked in: So fix this by having the rescan worker function not attempt to start a transaction if it didn't do any rescan work.

Why it matters now

Exploitation None reported CISA SSVC · not in CISA KEV
EPSS 0.00239 15th percentileScored 2026-11-07
Fix Partial Linux (Linux): 5.4.230, 5.10.165, 5.15.90 +3Red Hat: 2 without a fix

SSVC decision points

CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3

Exploitation
None
Automatable
No
Technical impact
Partial

The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.

Affected products

VendorProductAffected versionsFixed inStatusSource
LinuxLinux5.4.178 to before 5.4.230; 5.10.99 to before 5.10.165; 5.15.22 to before 5.15.90; 5.16.8 to before 5.175.4.230, 5.10.165, 5.15.90, 5.17Patch availableCNA
LinuxLinux5.17 and later5.4.230, 5.10.165, 5.15.90, 6.1.8, 6.2Patch availableCNA
  • Linux VendorLinux Affected 5.4.178 to before 5.4.230; 5.10.99 to before 5.10.165; 5.15.22 to before 5.15.90; 5.16.8 to before 5.17 Fixed in 5.4.230, 5.10.165, 5.15.90, 5.17 Patch available CNA
  • Linux VendorLinux Affected 5.17 and later Fixed in 5.4.230, 5.10.165, 5.15.90, 6.1.8, 6.2 Patch available CNA

CPE configurations NVD · 5

CPEVersionsRoleVendor
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*5.4.178 to before 5.4.230; 5.10.99 to before 5.10.165; 5.15.22 to before 5.15.90; after 5.16.8, before 5.17; 5.17 to before 6.1.8VulnerableLinux
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.2:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*6.2 rc1VulnerableLinux
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.2:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:*6.2 rc2VulnerableLinux
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.2:rc3:*:*:*:*:*:*6.2 rc3VulnerableLinux
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.2:rc4:*:*:*:*:*:*6.2 rc4VulnerableLinux
  • cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions 5.4.178 to before 5.4.230; 5.10.99 to before 5.10.165; 5.15.22 to before 5.15.90; after 5.16.8, before 5.17; 5.17 to before 6.1.8 Vulnerable ·Linux
  • cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.2:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions 6.2 rc1 Vulnerable ·Linux
  • cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.2:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions 6.2 rc2 Vulnerable ·Linux
  • cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.2:rc3:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions 6.2 rc3 Vulnerable ·Linux
  • cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.2:rc4:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions 6.2 rc4 Vulnerable ·Linux

Remediation

  • Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 5.4.230, 5.10.165, 5.15.90, 5.17
  • Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 5.4.230, 5.10.165, 5.15.90, 6.1.8, 6.2

Vendor assessments

Red Hat

Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →

ProductStatusPlan or fix
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6AffectedNo fix planned: Out of support scope
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7AffectedNo fix planned: Out of support scope
Not affected: 2 products
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9

Timeline

  1. 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2023-52896
  2. 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-7g59-fcf3-5hj5

References

  • TI-2025-26358 tls: fix handling of zero-length records on the rx_list KEVCVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
  • TI-2026-38352 netfilter: bridge: make ebt_snat ARP rewrite writable KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8
  • TI-2013-05264 The (1) get_user and (2) put_user API functions in the Linux kernel before 3.5.5 on the… KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8
  • TI-2022-00125 Integer overflow in kernel KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.4
  • TI-2013-01864 The perf_swevent_init function in kernel/events/core.c in the Linux kernel before 3.8.9… KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.4
  • TI-2021-05514 Heap Out-Of-Bounds Write in Netfilter IP6T_SO_SET_REPLACE KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.3
See all 15278 →

Sources