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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2025-37741 json

jfs: Prevent copying of nlink with value 0 from disk inode

published 2025-05-01 18 mo ago modified 2026-08-05 3 mo ago also EUVD-2025-13074

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 5%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

jfs: Prevent copying of nlink with value 0 from disk inode

syzbot report a deadlock in diFree. [1]

When calling "ioctl$LOOP_SET_STATUS64", the offset value passed in is 4, which does not match the mounted loop device, causing the mapping of the mounted loop device to be invalidated.

When creating the directory and creating the inode of iag in diReadSpecial(), read the page of fixed disk inode (AIT) in raw mode in read_metapage(), the metapage data it returns is corrupted, which causes the nlink value of 0 to be assigned to the iag inode when executing copy_from_dinode(), which ultimately causes a deadlock when entering diFree().

To avoid this, first check the nlink value of dinode before setting iag inode.

[1] WARNING: possible recursive locking detected 6.12.0-rc7-syzkaller-00212-g4a5df3796467 #0 Not tainted -------------------------------------------- syz-executor301/5309 is trying to acquire lock: ffff888044548920 (&(imap->im_aglock[index])){+.+.}-{3:3}, at: diFree+0x37c/0x2fb0 fs/jfs/jfs_imap.c:889

but task is already holding lock: ffff888044548920 (&(imap->im_aglock[index])){+.+.}-{3:3}, at: diAlloc+0x1b6/0x1630

other info that might help us debug this: Possible unsafe locking scenario:

CPU0 ---- lock(&(imap->im_aglock[index])); lock(&(imap->im_aglock[index]));

*** DEADLOCK ***

May be due to missing lock nesting notation

5 locks held by syz-executor301/5309: #0: ffff8880422a4420 (sb_writers#9){.+.+}-{0:0}, at: mnt_want_write+0x3f/0x90 fs/namespace.c:515 #1: ffff88804755b390 (&type->i_mutex_dir_key#6/1){+.+.}-{3:3}, at: inode_lock_nested include/linux/fs.h:850 [inline] #1: ffff88804755b390 (&type->i_mutex_dir_key#6/1){+.+.}-{3:3}, at: filename_create+0x260/0x540 fs/namei.c:4026 #2: ffff888044548920 (&(imap->im_aglock[index])){+.+.}-{3:3}, at: diAlloc+0x1b6/0x1630 #3: ffff888044548890 (&imap->im_freelock){+.+.}-{3:3}, at: diNewIAG fs/jfs/jfs_imap.c:2460 [inline] #3: ffff888044548890 (&imap->im_freelock){+.+.}-{3:3}, at: diAllocExt fs/jfs/jfs_imap.c:1905 [inline] #3: ffff888044548890 (&imap->im_freelock){+.+.}-{3:3}, at: diAllocAG+0x4b7/0x1e50 fs/jfs/jfs_imap.c:1669 #4: ffff88804755a618 (&jfs_ip->rdwrlock/1){++++}-{3:3}, at: diNewIAG fs/jfs/jfs_imap.c:2477 [inline] #4: ffff88804755a618 (&jfs_ip->rdwrlock/1){++++}-{3:3}, at: diAllocExt fs/jfs/jfs_imap.c:1905 [inline] #4: ffff88804755a618 (&jfs_ip->rdwrlock/1){++++}-{3:3}, at: diAllocAG+0x869/0x1e50 fs/jfs/jfs_imap.c:1669

stack backtrace: CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 5309 Comm: syz-executor301 Not tainted 6.12.0-rc7-syzkaller-00212-g4a5df3796467 #0 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2~bpo12+1 04/01/2014 Call Trace: <TASK> __dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:94 [inline] dump_stack_lvl+0x241/0x360 lib/dump_stack.c:120 print_deadlock_bug+0x483/0x620 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:3037 check_deadlock kernel/locking/lockdep.c:3089 [inline] validate_chain+0x15e2/0x5920 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:3891 __lock_acquire+0x1384/0x2050 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5202 lock_acquire+0x1ed/0x550 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5825 __mutex_lock_common kernel/locking/mutex.c:608 [inline] __mutex_lock+0x136/0xd70 kernel/locking/mutex.c:752 diFree+0x37c/0x2fb0 fs/jfs/jfs_imap.c:889 jfs_evict_inode+0x32d/0x440 fs/jfs/inode.c:156 evict+0x4e8/0x9b0 fs/inode.c:725 diFreeSpecial fs/jfs/jfs_imap.c:552 [inline] duplicateIXtree+0x3c6/0x550 fs/jfs/jfs_imap.c:3022 diNewIAG fs/jfs/jfs_imap.c:2597 [inline] diAllocExt fs/jfs/jfs_imap.c:1905 [inline] diAllocAG+0x17dc/0x1e50 fs/jfs/jfs_imap.c:1669 diAlloc+0x1d2/0x1630 fs/jfs/jfs_imap.c:1590 ialloc+0x8f/0x900 fs/jfs/jfs_inode.c:56 jfs_mkdir+0x1c5/0xba0 fs/jfs/namei.c:225 vfs_mkdir+0x2f9/0x4f0 fs/namei.c:4257 do_mkdirat+0x264/0x3a0 fs/namei.c:4280 __do_sys_mkdirat fs/namei.c:4295 [inline] __se_sys_mkdirat fs/namei.c:4293 [inline] __x64_sys_mkdirat+0x87/0xa0 fs/namei.c:4293 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/en ---truncated---

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.4.293, 5.10.237, 5.15.181, 6.1.135, 6.6.88, 6.12.24, 6.13.12, 6.14.3, 6.15
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.135-1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.12.25-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-37741

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-144.157
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-100.100
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1088.95
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1046.49
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1087.96
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1047.50
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1085.91
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1043.48

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2025-37741

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-coco SLE Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1
  • kernel-syms-coco SLE Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1
  • kernel-coco_debug SLE Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1
  • kernel-source-coco SLE Module for Confidential Computing Technical Preview 15 SP6 6.4.0-15061.28.coco15sp6.1
  • kernel-rt Real Time Module 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.7.8.1
  • kernel-syms-rt Real Time Module 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.7.8.1
  • kernel-source-rt Real Time Module 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.7.8.1
  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.6.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:02923-1SUSE-SU-2025:02333-1SUSE-SU-2025:02307-1SUSE-SU-2025:02254-1SUSE-SU-2025:02000-1SUSE-SU-2025:20413-1

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-2025-37741 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: jfs: Prevent copying of nlink with value 0 from disk inode

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • 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 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    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

Exploit prediction

0.16% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 5% 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
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

Weakness
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.