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Fencer Vulns
medium 4.7

CVE-2025-39884 json

btrfs: fix subvolume deletion lockup caused by inodes xarray race

published 2025-09-23 13 mo ago modified 2026-10-19 20 d ago also EUVD-2025-30851

cvss
4.7
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.1%
EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 1%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

btrfs: fix subvolume deletion lockup caused by inodes xarray race

There is a race condition between inode eviction and inode caching that can cause a live struct btrfs_inode to be missing from the root->inodes xarray. Specifically, there is a window during evict() between the inode being unhashed and deleted from the xarray. If btrfs_iget() is called for the same inode in that window, it will be recreated and inserted into the xarray, but then eviction will delete the new entry, leaving nothing in the xarray:

Thread 1 Thread 2 --------------------------------------------------------------- evict() remove_inode_hash() btrfs_iget_path() btrfs_iget_locked() btrfs_read_locked_inode() btrfs_add_inode_to_root() destroy_inode() btrfs_destroy_inode() btrfs_del_inode_from_root() __xa_erase

In turn, this can cause issues for subvolume deletion. Specifically, if an inode is in this lost state, and all other inodes are evicted, then btrfs_del_inode_from_root() will call btrfs_add_dead_root() prematurely. If the lost inode has a delayed_node attached to it, then when btrfs_clean_one_deleted_snapshot() calls btrfs_kill_all_delayed_nodes(), it will loop forever because the delayed_nodes xarray will never become empty (unless memory pressure forces the inode out). We saw this manifest as soft lockups in production.

Fix it by only deleting the xarray entry if it matches the given inode (using __xa_cmpxchg()).

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.12.48, 6.16.8, 6.17
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.48-1
  • linux Debian 14 6.16.8-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2025-39884

  • kernel-rt Linux Micro 6.2 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-64kb SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-source SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-default SLES 16.0, SLE High Availability Extension 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2 +1 more 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1.160000.2.4
  • kernel-syms SLES 16.0, Linux Micro Extras 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-obs-qa SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:21074-1SUSE-SU-2025:21139-1SUSE-SU-2026:20560-1SUSE-SU-2025:21179-1

  • kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-source openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-default openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.6.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2025:20081-1

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-2025-39884 updated cvss 4.7

kernel: btrfs: fix subvolume deletion lockup caused by inodes xarray race

  • 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

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
9 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.11% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 1% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 4.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 3.1 4.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA 3.1 4.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/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.