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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2026-46160 json

btrfs: fix missing last_unlink_trans update when removing a directory

published 2026-05-28 5 mo ago modified 2026-11-06 2 d ago also EUVD-2026-32787

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.1%
EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 2%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

btrfs: fix missing last_unlink_trans update when removing a directory

When removing a directory we are not updating its last_unlink_trans field, which can result in incorrect fsync behaviour in case some one fsyncs the directory after it was removed because it's holding a file descriptor on it.

Example scenario:

mkdir /mnt/dir1 mkdir /mnt/dir1/dir2 mkdir /mnt/dir3

sync -f /mnt

# Do some change to the directory and fsync it. chmod 700 /mnt/dir1 xfs_io -c fsync /mnt/dir1

# Move dir2 out of dir1 so that dir1 becomes empty. mv /mnt/dir1/dir2 /mnt/dir3/

open fd on /mnt/dir1 call rmdir(2) on path "/mnt/dir1" fsync fd

<trigger power failure>

When attempting to mount the filesystem, the log replay will fail with an -EIO error and dmesg/syslog has the following:

[445771.626482] BTRFS info (device dm-0): first mount of filesystem 0368bbea-6c5e-44b5-b409-09abe496e650 [445771.626486] BTRFS info (device dm-0): using crc32c checksum algorithm [445771.627912] BTRFS info (device dm-0): start tree-log replay [445771.628335] page: refcount:2 mapcount:0 mapping:0000000061443ddc index:0x1d00 pfn:0x7072a5 [445771.629453] memcg:ffff89f400351b00 [445771.629892] aops:btree_aops [btrfs] ino:1 [445771.630737] flags: 0x17fffc00000402a(uptodate|lru|private|writeback|node=0|zone=2|lastcpupid=0x1ffff) [445771.632359] raw: 017fffc00000402a fffff47284d950c8 fffff472907b7c08 ffff89f458e412b8 [445771.633713] raw: 0000000000001d00 ffff89f6c51d1a90 00000002ffffffff ffff89f400351b00 [445771.635029] page dumped because: eb page dump [445771.635825] BTRFS critical (device dm-0): corrupt leaf: root=5 block=30408704 slot=10 ino=258, invalid nlink: has 2 expect no more than 1 for dir [445771.638088] BTRFS info (device dm-0): leaf 30408704 gen 10 total ptrs 17 free space 14878 owner 5 [445771.638091] BTRFS info (device dm-0): refs 4 lock_owner 0 current 3581087 [445771.638094] item 0 key (256 INODE_ITEM 0) itemoff 16123 itemsize 160 [445771.638097] inode generation 3 transid 9 size 16 nbytes 16384 [445771.638098] block group 0 mode 40755 links 1 uid 0 gid 0 [445771.638100] rdev 0 sequence 2 flags 0x0 [445771.638102] atime 1775744884.0 [445771.660056] ctime 1775744885.645502983 [445771.660058] mtime 1775744885.645502983 [445771.660060] otime 1775744884.0 [445771.660062] item 1 key (256 INODE_REF 256) itemoff 16111 itemsize 12 [445771.660064] index 0 name_len 2 [445771.660066] item 2 key (256 DIR_ITEM 1843588421) itemoff 16077 itemsize 34 [445771.660068] location key (259 1 0) type 2 [445771.660070] transid 9 data_len 0 name_len 4 [445771.660075] item 3 key (256 DIR_ITEM 2363071922) itemoff 16043 itemsize 34 [445771.660076] location key (257 1 0) type 2 [445771.660077] transid 9 data_len 0 name_len 4 [445771.660078] item 4 key (256 DIR_INDEX 2) itemoff 16009 itemsize 34 [445771.660079] location key (257 1 0) type 2 [445771.660080] transid 9 data_len 0 name_len 4 [445771.660081] item 5 key (256 DIR_INDEX 3) itemoff 15975 itemsize 34 [445771.660082] location key (259 1 0) type 2 [445771.660083] transid 9 data_len 0 name_len 4 [445771.660084] item 6 key (257 INODE_ITEM 0) itemoff 15815 itemsize 160 [445771.660086] inode generation 9 transid 9 size 8 nbytes 0 [445771.660087] block group 0 mode 40777 links 1 uid 0 gid 0 [445771.660088] rdev 0 sequence 2 flags 0x0 [445771.660089] atime 1775744885.641174097 [445771.660090] ctime 1775744885.645502983 [445771.660091] mtime 1775744885.645502983 [445771.660105] otime 1775744885.641174097 [445771.660106] item 7 key (257 INODE_REF 256) itemoff 15801 itemsize 14 [445771.660107] index 2 name_len 4 [445771.660108] item 8 key (257 DIR_ITEM 2676584006) itemoff 15767 itemsize 34 [445771.660109] location key (2 ---truncated---

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.10.259, 5.15.210, 6.1.176, 6.6.141, 6.12.91, 6.18.30, 7.0.7, 7.1
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.176-1
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.94-1
  • linux Debian 14 7.0.7-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-46160

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-198.208
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-136.136
  • linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-28.28
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1117.124
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1061.64
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1009.9
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1118.128
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1064.72

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-46160

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 16.0, Linux Micro Extras 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.36.1
  • kernel-obs-build Linux Micro Extras 6.2 6.12.0-160000.36.1
  • kernel-rt Linux Micro 6.2 6.12.0-160000.36.1
  • kernel-64kb SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.36.1
  • kernel-source SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.36.1
  • kernel-default SLES 16.0, SLE High Availability Extension 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2 +1 more 6.12.0-160000.36.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.36.1.160000.2.17
  • kernel-azure SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 6.12.0-160000.36.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:22742-1SUSE-SU-2026:22769-1SUSE-SU-2026:22835-1SUSE-SU-2026:22812-1SUSE-SU-2026:2799-1SUSE-SU-2026:2722-1

  • kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.36.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.36.1
  • kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.36.1
  • kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.36.1
  • kernel-azure openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.36.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.36.1
  • kernel-source openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.36.1
  • kernel-default openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.36.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:21388-1openSUSE-SU-2026:10954-1

  • kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.141.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-89034

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

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-2026-46160 updated cvss 7.0

kernel: btrfs: fix missing last_unlink_trans update when removing a directory

  • 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 10 kernel
    affected: no fix available
  • 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 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.13% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 2% 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

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