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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2023-52900 json

nilfs2: fix general protection fault in nilfs_btree_insert()

published 2024-08-21 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2023-59611

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 15%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

nilfs2: fix general protection fault in nilfs_btree_insert()

If nilfs2 reads a corrupted disk image and tries to reads a b-tree node block by calling __nilfs_btree_get_block() against an invalid virtual block address, it returns -ENOENT because conversion of the virtual block address to a disk block address fails. However, this return value is the same as the internal code that b-tree lookup routines return to indicate that the block being searched does not exist, so functions that operate on that b-tree may misbehave.

When nilfs_btree_insert() receives this spurious 'not found' code from nilfs_btree_do_lookup(), it misunderstands that the 'not found' check was successful and continues the insert operation using incomplete lookup path data, causing the following crash:

general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000005: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000028-0x000000000000002f] ... RIP: 0010:nilfs_btree_get_nonroot_node fs/nilfs2/btree.c:418 [inline] RIP: 0010:nilfs_btree_prepare_insert fs/nilfs2/btree.c:1077 [inline] RIP: 0010:nilfs_btree_insert+0x6d3/0x1c10 fs/nilfs2/btree.c:1238 Code: bc 24 80 00 00 00 4c 89 f8 48 c1 e8 03 42 80 3c 28 00 74 08 4c 89 ff e8 4b 02 92 fe 4d 8b 3f 49 83 c7 28 4c 89 f8 48 c1 e8 03 <42> 80 3c 28 00 74 08 4c 89 ff e8 2e 02 92 fe 4d 8b 3f 49 83 c7 02 ... Call Trace: <TASK> nilfs_bmap_do_insert fs/nilfs2/bmap.c:121 [inline] nilfs_bmap_insert+0x20d/0x360 fs/nilfs2/bmap.c:147 nilfs_get_block+0x414/0x8d0 fs/nilfs2/inode.c:101 __block_write_begin_int+0x54c/0x1a80 fs/buffer.c:1991 __block_write_begin fs/buffer.c:2041 [inline] block_write_begin+0x93/0x1e0 fs/buffer.c:2102 nilfs_write_begin+0x9c/0x110 fs/nilfs2/inode.c:261 generic_perform_write+0x2e4/0x5e0 mm/filemap.c:3772 __generic_file_write_iter+0x176/0x400 mm/filemap.c:3900 generic_file_write_iter+0xab/0x310 mm/filemap.c:3932 call_write_iter include/linux/fs.h:2186 [inline] new_sync_write fs/read_write.c:491 [inline] vfs_write+0x7dc/0xc50 fs/read_write.c:584 ksys_write+0x177/0x2a0 fs/read_write.c:637 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x3d/0xb0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd ... </TASK>

This patch fixes the root cause of this problem by replacing the error code that __nilfs_btree_get_block() returns on block address conversion failure from -ENOENT to another internal code -EINVAL which means that the b-tree metadata is corrupted.

By returning -EINVAL, it propagates without glitches, and for all relevant b-tree operations, functions in the upper bmap layer output an error message indicating corrupted b-tree metadata via nilfs_bmap_convert_error(), and code -EIO will be eventually returned as it should be.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 4.14.304, 4.19.271, 5.4.230, 5.10.165, 5.15.90, 6.1.8, 6.2
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 6.1.8-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-52900

  • linux Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-209.220
  • linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-147.164
  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-70.77
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-1154.167
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1100.108
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1034.38
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1103.112
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1032.40

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2023-52900

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

  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.80.1
  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.80.2
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.80.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.80.1
  • kernel-source SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP5, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.80.2
  • kernel-default SLE Workstation Extension 15 SP5, SLE Module for Legacy 15 SP5, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5 +5 more 5.14.21-150500.55.80.2
  • kernel-kvmsmall openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.80.2
  • kernel-zfcpdump SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.80.2

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2024:3483-1SUSE-SU-2024:3408-1SUSE-SU-2024:3227-1SUSE-SU-2024:3209-1SUSE-SU-2024:3190-1

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-2023-52900 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: nilfs2: fix general protection fault in nilfs_btree_insert()

  • 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 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

0.24% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 15% 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.