Skip to content

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been...

High severity Unreviewed Published Feb 27, 2025 to the GitHub Advisory Database • Updated Feb 27, 2025

Package

No package listedSuggest a package

Affected versions

Unknown

Patched versions

Unknown

Description

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

btrfs: fix use-after-free when attempting to join an aborted transaction

When we are trying to join the current transaction and if it's aborted,
we read its 'aborted' field after unlocking fs_info->trans_lock and
without holding any extra reference count on it. This means that a
concurrent task that is aborting the transaction may free the transaction
before we read its 'aborted' field, leading to a use-after-free.

Fix this by reading the 'aborted' field while holding fs_info->trans_lock
since any freeing task must first acquire that lock and set
fs_info->running_transaction to NULL before freeing the transaction.

This was reported by syzbot and Dmitry with the following stack traces
from KASAN:

==================================================================
BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in join_transaction+0xd9b/0xda0 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:278
Read of size 4 at addr ffff888011839024 by task kworker/u4:9/1128

CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 1128 Comm: kworker/u4:9 Not tainted 6.13.0-rc7-syzkaller-00019-gc45323b7560e #0
Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2~bpo12+1 04/01/2014
Workqueue: events_unbound btrfs_async_reclaim_data_space
Call Trace:

__dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:94 [inline]
dump_stack_lvl+0x241/0x360 lib/dump_stack.c:120
print_address_description mm/kasan/report.c:378 [inline]
print_report+0x169/0x550 mm/kasan/report.c:489
kasan_report+0x143/0x180 mm/kasan/report.c:602
join_transaction+0xd9b/0xda0 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:278
start_transaction+0xaf8/0x1670 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:697
flush_space+0x448/0xcf0 fs/btrfs/space-info.c:803
btrfs_async_reclaim_data_space+0x159/0x510 fs/btrfs/space-info.c:1321
process_one_work kernel/workqueue.c:3236 [inline]
process_scheduled_works+0xa66/0x1840 kernel/workqueue.c:3317
worker_thread+0x870/0xd30 kernel/workqueue.c:3398
kthread+0x2f0/0x390 kernel/kthread.c:389
ret_from_fork+0x4b/0x80 arch/x86/kernel/process.c:147
ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:244

Allocated by task 5315:
kasan_save_stack mm/kasan/common.c:47 [inline]
kasan_save_track+0x3f/0x80 mm/kasan/common.c:68
poison_kmalloc_redzone mm/kasan/common.c:377 [inline]
__kasan_kmalloc+0x98/0xb0 mm/kasan/common.c:394
kasan_kmalloc include/linux/kasan.h:260 [inline]
__kmalloc_cache_noprof+0x243/0x390 mm/slub.c:4329
kmalloc_noprof include/linux/slab.h:901 [inline]
join_transaction+0x144/0xda0 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:308
start_transaction+0xaf8/0x1670 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:697
btrfs_create_common+0x1b2/0x2e0 fs/btrfs/inode.c:6572
lookup_open fs/namei.c:3649 [inline]
open_last_lookups fs/namei.c:3748 [inline]
path_openat+0x1c03/0x3590 fs/namei.c:3984
do_filp_open+0x27f/0x4e0 fs/namei.c:4014
do_sys_openat2+0x13e/0x1d0 fs/open.c:1402
do_sys_open fs/open.c:1417 [inline]
__do_sys_creat fs/open.c:1495 [inline]
__se_sys_creat fs/open.c:1489 [inline]
__x64_sys_creat+0x123/0x170 fs/open.c:1489
do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:52 [inline]
do_syscall_64+0xf3/0x230 arch/x86/entry/common.c:83
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f

Freed by task 5336:
kasan_save_stack mm/kasan/common.c:47 [inline]
kasan_save_track+0x3f/0x80 mm/kasan/common.c:68
kasan_save_free_info+0x40/0x50 mm/kasan/generic.c:582
poison_slab_object mm/kasan/common.c:247 [inline]
__kasan_slab_free+0x59/0x70 mm/kasan/common.c:264
kasan_slab_free include/linux/kasan.h:233 [inline]
slab_free_hook mm/slub.c:2353 [inline]
slab_free mm/slub.c:4613 [inline]
kfree+0x196/0x430 mm/slub.c:4761
cleanup_transaction fs/btrfs/transaction.c:2063 [inline]
btrfs_commit_transaction+0x2c97/0x3720 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:2598
insert_balance_item+0x1284/0x20b0 fs/btrfs/volumes.c:3757
btrfs_balance+0x992/
---truncated---

References

Published by the National Vulnerability Database Feb 27, 2025
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Feb 27, 2025
Last updated Feb 27, 2025

Severity

High

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Local
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS score

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

This score estimates the probability of this vulnerability being exploited within the next 30 days. Data provided by FIRST.
(18th percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2025-21753

GHSA ID

GHSA-595v-ghj9-chj5

Source code

No known source code

Dependabot alerts are not supported on this advisory because it does not have a package from a supported ecosystem with an affected and fixed version.

Learn more about GitHub language support

Loading Checking history
See something to contribute? Suggest improvements for this vulnerability.