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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2022-48901 json

btrfs: do not start relocation until in progress drops are done

published 2024-08-22 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2022-53780

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 11%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

btrfs: do not start relocation until in progress drops are done

We hit a bug with a recovering relocation on mount for one of our file systems in production. I reproduced this locally by injecting errors into snapshot delete with balance running at the same time. This presented as an error while looking up an extent item

WARNING: CPU: 5 PID: 1501 at fs/btrfs/extent-tree.c:866 lookup_inline_extent_backref+0x647/0x680 CPU: 5 PID: 1501 Comm: btrfs-balance Not tainted 5.16.0-rc8+ #8 RIP: 0010:lookup_inline_extent_backref+0x647/0x680 RSP: 0018:ffffae0a023ab960 EFLAGS: 00010202 RAX: 0000000000000001 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 0000000000000000 RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 000000000000000c RDI: 0000000000000000 RBP: ffff943fd2a39b60 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000001 R10: 0001434088152de0 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: 0000000001d05000 R13: ffff943fd2a39b60 R14: ffff943fdb96f2a0 R15: ffff9442fc923000 FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff944e9eb40000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00007f1157b1fca8 CR3: 000000010f092000 CR4: 0000000000350ee0 Call Trace: <TASK> insert_inline_extent_backref+0x46/0xd0 __btrfs_inc_extent_ref.isra.0+0x5f/0x200 ? btrfs_merge_delayed_refs+0x164/0x190 __btrfs_run_delayed_refs+0x561/0xfa0 ? btrfs_search_slot+0x7b4/0xb30 ? btrfs_update_root+0x1a9/0x2c0 btrfs_run_delayed_refs+0x73/0x1f0 ? btrfs_update_root+0x1a9/0x2c0 btrfs_commit_transaction+0x50/0xa50 ? btrfs_update_reloc_root+0x122/0x220 prepare_to_merge+0x29f/0x320 relocate_block_group+0x2b8/0x550 btrfs_relocate_block_group+0x1a6/0x350 btrfs_relocate_chunk+0x27/0xe0 btrfs_balance+0x777/0xe60 balance_kthread+0x35/0x50 ? btrfs_balance+0xe60/0xe60 kthread+0x16b/0x190 ? set_kthread_struct+0x40/0x40 ret_from_fork+0x22/0x30 </TASK>

Normally snapshot deletion and relocation are excluded from running at the same time by the fs_info->cleaner_mutex. However if we had a pending balance waiting to get the ->cleaner_mutex, and a snapshot deletion was running, and then the box crashed, we would come up in a state where we have a half deleted snapshot.

Again, in the normal case the snapshot deletion needs to complete before relocation can start, but in this case relocation could very well start before the snapshot deletion completes, as we simply add the root to the dead roots list and wait for the next time the cleaner runs to clean up the snapshot.

Fix this by setting a bit on the fs_info if we have any DEAD_ROOT's that had a pending drop_progress key. If they do then we know we were in the middle of the drop operation and set a flag on the fs_info. Then balance can wait until this flag is cleared to start up again.

If there are DEAD_ROOT's that don't have a drop_progress set then we're safe to start balance right away as we'll be properly protected by the cleaner_mutex.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.15.27, 5.16.13, 5.17
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.16.14-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2022-48901

  • linux-intel-iotg-5.15 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.15.0-1008.11~20.04.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2022-48901

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-rt SLE Micro 5.5, Real Time Module 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap Micro 5.5 +1 more 5.14.21-150500.13.73.1
  • kernel-syms-rt Real Time Module 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.13.73.1
  • kernel-rt_debug Real Time Module 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.13.73.1
  • kernel-source-rt SLE Micro 5.5, Real Time Module 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.13.73.1
  • kernel-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.33.69.1
  • kernel-syms-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.33.69.1
  • kernel-source-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.33.69.1
  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5 5.14.21-150500.55.83.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2024:3592-1SUSE-SU-2024:3587-1SUSE-SU-2024:3569-1SUSE-SU-2024:3499-1SUSE-SU-2024:3249-1SUSE-SU-2024:3225-1

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-2022-48901 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: btrfs: do not start relocation until in progress drops are done

  • 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: 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

0.21% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 11% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

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.