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TI-2025-26973 Aliases CVE-2025-40303GHSA-5q2h-f93q-8fv2

btrfs: ensure no dirty metadata is written back for an fs with errors

Priority LOW 33Published · Updated

Key facts

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

Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat.

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: ensure no dirty metadata is written back for an fs with errors [BUG] During development of a minor feature (make sure all btrfs_bio::end_io() is called in task context), I noticed a crash in generic/388, where metadata writes triggered new works after btrfs_stop_all_workers(). It turns out that it can even happen without any code modification, just using RAID5 for metadata and the same workload from generic/388 is going to trigger the use-after-free. [CAUSE] If btrfs hits an error, the fs is marked as error, no new transaction is allowed thus metadata is in a frozen state. But there are some metadata modifications before that error, and they are still in the btree inode page cache. Since there will be no real transaction commit, all those dirty folios are just kept as is in the page cache, and they can not be invalidated by invalidate_inode_pages2() call inside close_ctree(), because they are dirty. And finally after btrfs_stop_all_workers(), we call iput() on btree inode, which triggers writeback of those dirty metadata. And if the fs is using RAID56 metadata, this will trigger RMW and queue new works into rmw_workers, which is already stopped, causing warning from queue_work() and use-after-free. [FIX] Add a special handling for write_one_eb(), that if the fs is already in an error state, immediately mark the bbio as failure, instead of really submitting them. Then during close_ctree(), iput() will just discard all those dirty tree blocks without really writing them back, thus no more new jobs for already stopped-and-freed workqueues. The extra discard in write_one_eb() also acts as an extra safenet. E.g. the transaction abort is triggered by some extent/free space tree corruptions, and since extent/free space tree is already corrupted some tree blocks may be allocated where they shouldn't be (overwriting existing tree blocks). In that case writing them back will further corrupting the fs.

Why it matters now

EPSS 0.00138 3rd percentileScored 2026-11-07
Fix Partial Linux (Linux): 6.6.117, 6.12.58, 6.17.8 +1Red Hat: 2 without a fix

SSVC decision points

Not available: CISA has not published SSVC decision points for this record.

Affected products

VendorProductAffected versionsFixed inStatusSource
LinuxLinux3.10 and later6.6.117, 6.12.58, 6.17.8, 6.18Patch availableCNA
  • Linux VendorLinux Affected 3.10 and later Fixed in 6.6.117, 6.12.58, 6.17.8, 6.18 Patch available CNA

CPE names Threatist (inferred) · 1

Inferred from how NVD named this product before; not given by a source.

CPEVersionsRoleVendor
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*——Linux
  • cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions — — ·Linux

Remediation

  • Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 6.6.117, 6.12.58, 6.17.8, 6.18

Vendor assessments

Red Hat

Red Hat rating: Low. 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 yet: Fix deferred
Not affected: 3 products
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9

Timeline

  1. 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2025-40303
  2. 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-5q2h-f93q-8fv2

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-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
See all 21741 →

Sources