Bug 2516808 (CVE-2026-74321) - CVE-2026-74321 kernel: btrfs: fix invalid pointer dereference in __btrfs_run_delayed_refs()
Summary: CVE-2026-74321 kernel: btrfs: fix invalid pointer dereference in __btrfs_run_...
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-74321
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security DevOps Team
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-08-15 06:34 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-09-03 14:20 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-15 06:34:32 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

btrfs: fix invalid pointer dereference in __btrfs_run_delayed_refs()

In the beginning of the loop, we try to obtain a locked delayed ref head,
if 'locked_ref' is currently NULL, by calling btrfs_select_ref_head(),
which can return an error pointer. If the error pointer is -EAGAIN we do
a continue and go back to the beginning of the loop, which will not try
again to call btrfs_select_ref_head() since 'locked_ref' is no longer
NULL but it's ERR_PTR(-EAGAIN), and then we do:

   spin_lock(&locked_ref->lock);

against a ERR_PTR(-EAGAIN) value, generating an invalid pointer
dereference.

Fix this by ensuring that 'locked_ref' is set to NULL when
btrfs_select_ref_head() returns ERR_PTR(-EAGAIN) and incrementing 'count'
as well, to prevent infinite looping. We do this by doing a goto to the
bottom of the loop that already sets 'locked_ref' to NULL and does a
cond_resched(), with an increment to 'count' right before the goto.
These measures were in place before the refactoring in commit 0110a4c43451
("btrfs: refactor __btrfs_run_delayed_refs loop") but were unintentionally
lost afterwards.


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