Bug 2448700 (CVE-2026-23249)

Summary: CVE-2026-23249 kernel: xfs: check for deleted cursors when revalidating two btrees
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
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Version: unspecifiedKeywords: Security
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OS: Linux   
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A NULL pointer dereference vulnerability was found in the Linux kernel's XFS filesystem scrub/repair code. In xrep_revalidate_allocbt(), when revalidating both the BNOBT and CNTBT btrees, if the first btree validation fails during cross-reference, the second btree cursor is nullified. The code then attempts to revalidate the second btree using the NULL cursor, causing a kernel crash.
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-03-18 18:03:20 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

xfs: check for deleted cursors when revalidating two btrees

The free space and inode btree repair functions will rebuild both btrees
at the same time, after which it needs to evaluate both btrees to
confirm that the corruptions are gone.

However, Jiaming Zhang ran syzbot and produced a crash in the second
xchk_allocbt call.  His root-cause analysis is as follows (with minor
corrections):

 In xrep_revalidate_allocbt(), xchk_allocbt() is called twice (first
 for BNOBT, second for CNTBT). The cause of this issue is that the
 first call nullified the cursor required by the second call.

 Let's first enter xrep_revalidate_allocbt() via following call chain:

 xfs_file_ioctl() ->
 xfs_ioc_scrubv_metadata() ->
 xfs_scrub_metadata() ->
 `sc->ops->repair_eval(sc)` ->
 xrep_revalidate_allocbt()

 xchk_allocbt() is called twice in this function. In the first call:

 /* Note that sc->sm->sm_type is XFS_SCRUB_TYPE_BNOPT now */
 xchk_allocbt() ->
 xchk_btree() ->
 `bs->scrub_rec(bs, recp)` ->
 xchk_allocbt_rec() ->
 xchk_allocbt_xref() ->
 xchk_allocbt_xref_other()

 since sm_type is XFS_SCRUB_TYPE_BNOBT, pur is set to &sc->sa.cnt_cur.
 Kernel called xfs_alloc_get_rec() and returned -EFSCORRUPTED. Call
 chain:

 xfs_alloc_get_rec() ->
 xfs_btree_get_rec() ->
 xfs_btree_check_block() ->
 (XFS_IS_CORRUPT || XFS_TEST_ERROR), the former is false and the latter
 is true, return -EFSCORRUPTED. This should be caused by
 ioctl$XFS_IOC_ERROR_INJECTION I guess.

 Back to xchk_allocbt_xref_other(), after receiving -EFSCORRUPTED from
 xfs_alloc_get_rec(), kernel called xchk_should_check_xref(). In this
 function, *curpp (points to sc->sa.cnt_cur) is nullified.

 Back to xrep_revalidate_allocbt(), since sc->sa.cnt_cur has been
 nullified, it then triggered null-ptr-deref via xchk_allocbt() (second
 call) -> xchk_btree().

So.  The bnobt revalidation failed on a cross-reference attempt, so we
deleted the cntbt cursor, and then crashed when we tried to revalidate
the cntbt.  Therefore, check for a null cntbt cursor before that
revalidation, and mark the repair incomplete.  Also we can ignore the
second tree entirely if the first tree was rebuilt but is already
corrupt.

Apply the same fix to xrep_revalidate_iallocbt because it has the same
problem.