Bug 2559667 (CVE-2026-98941)

Summary: CVE-2026-98941 kernel: kernel: Denial of Service via large folios on encrypted ext4 files
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: akhatavk, aos-team-art-private, asdas, dpaolell, jdelft, jupierce, lgarciaa, mbiarnes, ppalepu, ppostler, prdhamdh, rhel-process-autobot, sghai, sidsharm, suppawar, vlaad, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: ---
Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's ext4 filesystem. A local user can cause a denial of service (DoS) and system crash by writing encrypted data to an ext4 filesystem when encryption is enabled after mounting. This occurs because the filesystem bypasses compatibility checks for large memory blocks (folios), resulting in a kernel null pointer dereference.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-23 12:57:31 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ext4: don't enable large folios on encrypted inodes

Commit 709f0f1f1bf5 ("ext4: add checks for large folio
incompatibilities when BS > PS") disables large folios at mount time
if the "encrypt" feature is set. However, enabling that feature on a
mounted filesystem circumvents that check, and writing encrypted data
results in a crash:

  BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000028
  Workqueue: ext4-rsv-conversion ext4_end_io_rsv_work
  RIP: 0010:ext4_finish_bio+0xf7/0x3e0
  Call Trace:
   ext4_release_io_end+0x51/0x110
   ext4_end_io_end+0x4c/0xe0
   ext4_end_io_rsv_work+0xb3/0x100

Fix this by disabling large folios on encrypted inodes, as is
already done for inodes that use data journaling.

This affects all kernels between v6.19 and v7.2, but it is not needed
in v7.3, where the code was significantly refactored.