CVE-2026-45942

Published May 27, 2026

Last updated 5 days ago

Overview

Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ext4: fix e4b bitmap inconsistency reports A bitmap inconsistency issue was observed during stress tests under mixed huge-page workloads. Ext4 reported multiple e4b bitmap check failures like: ext4_mb_complex_scan_group:2508: group 350, 8179 free clusters as per group info. But got 8192 blocks Analysis and experimentation confirmed that the issue is caused by a race condition between page migration and bitmap modification. Although this timing window is extremely narrow, it is still hit in practice: folio_lock ext4_mb_load_buddy __migrate_folio check ref count folio_mc_copy __filemap_get_folio folio_try_get(folio) ...... mb_mark_used ext4_mb_unload_buddy __folio_migrate_mapping folio_ref_freeze folio_unlock The root cause of this issue is that the fast path of load_buddy only increments the folio's reference count, which is insufficient to prevent concurrent folio migration. We observed that the folio migration process acquires the folio lock. Therefore, we can determine whether to take the fast path in load_buddy by checking the lock status. If the folio is locked, we opt for the slow path (which acquires the lock) to close this concurrency window. Additionally, this change addresses the following issues: When the DOUBLE_CHECK macro is enabled to inspect bitmap-related issues, the following error may be triggered: corruption in group 324 at byte 784(6272): f in copy != ff on disk/prealloc Analysis reveals that this is a false positive. There is a specific race window where the bitmap and the group descriptor become momentarily inconsistent, leading to this error report: ext4_mb_load_buddy ext4_mb_load_buddy __filemap_get_folio(create|lock) folio_lock ext4_mb_init_cache folio_mark_uptodate __filemap_get_folio(no lock) ...... mb_mark_used mb_mark_used_double mb_cmp_bitmaps mb_set_bits(e4b->bd_bitmap) folio_unlock The original logic assumed that since mb_cmp_bitmaps is called when the bitmap is newly loaded from disk, the folio lock would be sufficient to prevent concurrent access. However, this overlooks a specific race condition: if another process attempts to load buddy and finds the folio is already in an uptodate state, it will immediately begin using it without holding folio lock.
Source
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
NVD status
Undergoing Analysis
Products
linux_kernel

Risk scores

CVSS 3.1

Type
Secondary
Base score
7.8
Impact score
5.9
Exploitability score
1.8
Vector string
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Severity
HIGH

Weaknesses

nvd@nist.gov
CWE-362
134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0
CWE-362

Social media

Hype score
Not currently trending

Configurations

  1. In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: cgroup: Avoid iteration of dying tasks with zero refcount The commit 260fbcb92bbea ("cgroup: Move dying_tasks cleanup from cgroup_task_release() to cgroup_task_free()") extended the lifetime of tasks on the dying_tasks list. The iterators have provision to go through dying_tasks because of dying threadgroup leaders or explicit CSS_TASK_ITER_WITH_DEAD, however, it was expected that such tasks can obtain a new reference (that is possible before cgroup_task_release()/put_task_struct_rcu_user()). The tasks after cgroup_task_release() and before cgroup_task_free() are subject to race when they may or may not have ->usage count > 0. The race window is between css_task_iter_next() invocations when css_set_lock is released and we may arrive at a new ->task_pos. The iterator should not attempt to resurrect tasks whose ->usage count dropped to zero. (When that happens, __put_task_struct_rcu_cb() is already imminent and the returned task_struct would could be used after free.) As for the fix, we cannot simply check the signal->live count of a task on the dying list because that won't distinguish regular zombies waiting to be reaped from RCU remnant tasks that are going to be free'd. Therefore add an extra check to rule out ->usage==0 tasks from any iteration. The repeat: loop in css_task_iter_advance() doesn't consider ->usage count, so add a new loop to css_task_iter_next() to skip de-used tasks on the dying_list. Rough illustration of the possible race R (reader of cgroup.procs) T (thread) L (group leader) --------------------------------- -------------------------------- -------------------------------- L exits, signal->live > 0 cgroup_task_dead(L) css_set_skip_task_iters() // skips only cset->tasks list_add_tail(&L->cg_list, &cset->dying_tasks) css_task_iter_next() take css_set_lock css_task_iter_advance() leader && signal->live != 0 => it->task_pos = &L->cg_list release css_set_lock T exits --signal->live == 0 cgroup_task_dead(T) // css_set_lock release_task(T) cgroup_task_release(T) release_task(L) // zap_leader cgroup_task_release(L) put_task_struct_rcu_user(L) ...RCU... put_task_struct(L) L->usage = 0 /* L still on dying_tasks */ ...RCU... __put_task_struct(L) css_task_iter_next() // another iteration take css_set_lock it->task_pos = &L->cg_list get_task_struct(L) => addition on 0 drop css_set_lock cgroup_task_free(L) css_set_skip_task_iters() // dying skip comes too late free_task(L) cgroup_procs_show() task_pid_vnr(L)•CVE-2026-98163