xfs: fix out of bounds memory read error in symlink repair
Key facts
- Attack vector
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- Privileges required
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- User interaction
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- Attack complexity
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- Impact type
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- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
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- Fix status
- Fixed
No CVSS vector from any source. Fix status from CNA.
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: xfs: fix out of bounds memory read error in symlink repair xfs/286 produced this report on my test fleet: ================================================================== BUG: KFENCE: out-of-bounds read in memcpy_orig+0x54/0x110 Out-of-bounds read at 0xffff88843fe9e038 (184B right of kfence-#184): memcpy_orig+0x54/0x110 xrep_symlink_salvage_inline+0xb3/0xf0 [xfs] xrep_symlink_salvage+0x100/0x110 [xfs] xrep_symlink+0x2e/0x80 [xfs] xrep_attempt+0x61/0x1f0 [xfs] xfs_scrub_metadata+0x34f/0x5c0 [xfs] xfs_ioc_scrubv_metadata+0x387/0x560 [xfs] xfs_file_ioctl+0xe23/0x10e0 [xfs] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x76/0xc0 do_syscall_64+0x4e/0x1e0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53 kfence-#184: 0xffff88843fe9df80-0xffff88843fe9dfea, size=107, cache=kmalloc-128 allocated by task 3470 on cpu 1 at 263329.131592s (192823.508886s ago): xfs_init_local_fork+0x79/0xe0 [xfs] xfs_iformat_local+0xa4/0x170 [xfs] xfs_iformat_data_fork+0x148/0x180 [xfs] xfs_inode_from_disk+0x2cd/0x480 [xfs] xfs_iget+0x450/0xd60 [xfs] xfs_bulkstat_one_int+0x6b/0x510 [xfs] xfs_bulkstat_iwalk+0x1e/0x30 [xfs] xfs_iwalk_ag_recs+0xdf/0x150 [xfs] xfs_iwalk_run_callbacks+0xb9/0x190 [xfs] xfs_iwalk_ag+0x1dc/0x2f0 [xfs] xfs_iwalk_args.constprop.0+0x6a/0x120 [xfs] xfs_iwalk+0xa4/0xd0 [xfs] xfs_bulkstat+0xfa/0x170 [xfs] xfs_ioc_fsbulkstat.isra.0+0x13a/0x230 [xfs] xfs_file_ioctl+0xbf2/0x10e0 [xfs] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x76/0xc0 do_syscall_64+0x4e/0x1e0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53 CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 1300113 Comm: xfs_scrub Not tainted 6.18.0-rc4-djwx #rc4 PREEMPT(lazy) 3d744dd94e92690f00a04398d2bd8631dcef1954 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.16.0-4.module+el8.8.0+21164+ed375313 04/01/2014 ================================================================== On further analysis, I realized that the second parameter to min() is not correct. xfs_ifork::if_bytes is the size of the xfs_ifork::if_data buffer. if_bytes can be smaller than the data fork size because: (a) the forkoff code tries to keep the data area as large as possible (b) for symbolic links, if_bytes is the ondisk file size + 1 (c) forkoff is always a multiple of 8. Case in point: for a single-byte symlink target, forkoff will be 8 but the buffer will only be 2 bytes long. In other words, the logic here is wrong and we walk off the end of the incore buffer. Fix that.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
Not available: CISA has not published SSVC decision points for this record.
Affected products
Remediation
- Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 6.12.60, 6.17.10, 6.18
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
Not affected: 5 products
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2025-40246
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-x6g9-37j8-7qh9
References
More Linux vulnerabilities
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- TI-2021-02452 Incorrect authorization in Ubuntu linux kernel 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
Sources
- CVE-2025-40246 · CVE Program
- CVE-2025-40246 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-x6g9-37j8-7qh9 · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2025-40246 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
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