CVE-2023-52896

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

MEDIUM
4.7
CVSS Score
Published: August 21, 2024 at 06:10 AM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 06:43 AM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorLinux Kernel

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Severity
MEDIUM4.7
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.2%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

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.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v ≥ 5.16.85.10.99 ≤ v < 5.10.1655.15.22 ≤ v < 5.15.905.16.8 ≤ v < 5.175.17 ≤ v < 6.1.85.17 ≤ v < 6.25.4.178 ≤ v < 5.4.2305.16.8 < v < 5.1726b3901d20bf9da2c6a00cb1fb48932166f80a4531198e58c09e21d4f65c49d2361f76b87aca4c3f32747e01436aac8ef93fe85b5b523b4f3b52f0405.10.995.15.225.16.85.4.1786.2 rc16.2 rc26.2 rc36.2 rc489d4cca583fc9594ee7d1a0bc986886d6fb587e6e804861bd4e69cc5fe1053eedcb024982dde8e48
Vendor states this is fixed in 1004fc90f0d79a4b7d9e3d432729914f472f9ad1 (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 3bd43374857103ba3cac751d6d4afa8d83b5d92a (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 64287cd456a22373053998c1fccf14b651e9cbbd (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 89ac597e3e807b91e2ebd6a7c36fec7b97290233 (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in b7adbf9ada3513d2092362c8eac5cddc5b651f5c (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 5.10.165 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 5.15.90 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 5.17 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 5.4.230 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.1.8 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.2 (unaffected)

References (5)

Patch
Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1004fc90f0d79a4b7d9e3d432729914f472f9ad1
Patch
Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3bd43374857103ba3cac751d6d4afa8d83b5d92a
Patch
Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/64287cd456a22373053998c1fccf14b651e9cbbd
Patch
Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/89ac597e3e807b91e2ebd6a7c36fec7b97290233
Patch
Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b7adbf9ada3513d2092362c8eac5cddc5b651f5c

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

Attack Vector
LOCAL
Complexity
HIGH
Privileges
LOW
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusANALYZED
CWE
CWE-476

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