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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2021-47189 json

btrfs: fix memory ordering between normal and ordered work functions

published 2024-04-10 2 y ago modified 2026-08-05 3 mo ago also EUVD-2021-33837

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.7%
EPSS 0.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 52%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

btrfs: fix memory ordering between normal and ordered work functions

Ordered work functions aren't guaranteed to be handled by the same thread which executed the normal work functions. The only way execution between normal/ordered functions is synchronized is via the WORK_DONE_BIT, unfortunately the used bitops don't guarantee any ordering whatsoever.

This manifested as seemingly inexplicable crashes on ARM64, where async_chunk::inode is seen as non-null in async_cow_submit which causes submit_compressed_extents to be called and crash occurs because async_chunk::inode suddenly became NULL. The call trace was similar to:

pc : submit_compressed_extents+0x38/0x3d0 lr : async_cow_submit+0x50/0xd0 sp : ffff800015d4bc20

<registers omitted for brevity>

Call trace: submit_compressed_extents+0x38/0x3d0 async_cow_submit+0x50/0xd0 run_ordered_work+0xc8/0x280 btrfs_work_helper+0x98/0x250 process_one_work+0x1f0/0x4ac worker_thread+0x188/0x504 kthread+0x110/0x114 ret_from_fork+0x10/0x18

Fix this by adding respective barrier calls which ensure that all accesses preceding setting of WORK_DONE_BIT are strictly ordered before setting the flag. At the same time add a read barrier after reading of WORK_DONE_BIT in run_ordered_work which ensures all subsequent loads would be strictly ordered after reading the bit. This in turn ensures are all accesses before WORK_DONE_BIT are going to be strictly ordered before any access that can occur in ordered_func.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 4.4.293, 4.9.291, 4.14.256, 4.19.218, 5.4.162, 5.10.82, 5.15.5, 5.16
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.15.5-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47189

  • linux Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-167.175
  • linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-97.110
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-1119.127
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1064.67
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1063.67
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1013.14
  • linux-kvm Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-1106.108
  • linux-kvm Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1054.56

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2021-47189

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5 4.12.14-122.216.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5 4.12.14-122.216.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5, SLE Workstation Extension 12 SP5 +2 more 4.12.14-122.216.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP5 4.12.14-122.216.1
  • kernel-rt SLE Micro 5.5, Real Time Module 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.13.52.1
  • kernel-syms-rt Real Time Module 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.13.52.1
  • kernel-rt_debug Real Time Module 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.13.52.1
  • kernel-source-rt SLE Micro 5.5, Real Time Module 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.13.52.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2024:1870-1SUSE-SU-2024:1663-1SUSE-SU-2024:1659-1SUSE-SU-2024:1647-1SUSE-SU-2024:1646-1SUSE-SU-2024:1643-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2021-47189 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: btrfs: fix memory ordering between normal and ordered work functions

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

0.67% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 52% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CISA ADP 3.1 6.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L
CNA 3.1 6.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.