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Fencer Vulns
high 8.4

CVE-2026-46251 json

btrfs: fix block_group_tree dirty_list corruption

published 2026-06-03 5 mo ago modified 2026-08-05 3 mo ago also EUVD-2026-34113

cvss
8.4
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 2%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

btrfs: fix block_group_tree dirty_list corruption

When the incompat flag EXTENT_TREE_V2 is set, we unconditionally add the block group tree to the switch_commits list before calling switch_commit_roots, as we do for the tree root and the chunk root. However, the block group tree uses normal root dirty tracking and in any transaction that does an allocation and dirties a block group, the block group root will already be linked to a list by the dirty_list field and this use of list_add_tail() is invalid and corrupts the prev/next members of block_group_root->dirty_list.

This is apparent on a subsequent list_del on the prev if we enable CONFIG_DEBUG_LIST:

[32.1571] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [32.1572] list_del corruption. next->prev should beffff958890202538, but was ffff9588992bd538. (next=ffff958890201538) [32.1575] WARNING: lib/list_debug.c:65 at 0x0, CPU#3: sync/607 [32.1583] CPU: 3 UID: 0 PID: 607 Comm: sync Not tainted 6.18.0 #24PREEMPT(none) [32.1585] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS1.17.0-4.fc41 04/01/2014 [32.1587] RIP: 0010:__list_del_entry_valid_or_report+0x108/0x120 [32.1593] RSP: 0018:ffffaa288287fdd0 EFLAGS: 00010202 [32.1594] RAX: 0000000000000001 RBX: ffff95889326e800 RCX:ffff958890201538 [32.1596] RDX: ffff9588992bd538 RSI: ffff958890202538 RDI:ffffffff82a41e00 [32.1597] RBP: ffff958890202538 R08: ffffffff828fc1e8 R09:00000000ffffefff [32.1599] R10: ffffffff8288c200 R11: ffffffff828e4200 R12:ffff958890201538 [32.1601] R13: ffff95889326e958 R14: ffff958895c24000 R15:ffff958890202538 [32.1603] FS: 00007f0c28eb5740(0000) GS:ffff958af2bd2000(0000)knlGS:0000000000000000 [32.1605] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [32.1607] CR2: 00007f0c28e8a3cc CR3: 0000000109942005 CR4:0000000000370ef0 [32.1609] Call Trace: [32.1610] <TASK> [32.1611] switch_commit_roots+0x82/0x1d0 [btrfs] [32.1615] btrfs_commit_transaction+0x968/0x1550 [btrfs] [32.1618] ? btrfs_attach_transaction_barrier+0x23/0x60 [btrfs] [32.1621] __iterate_supers+0xe8/0x190 [32.1622] ? __pfx_sync_fs_one_sb+0x10/0x10 [32.1623] ksys_sync+0x63/0xb0 [32.1624] __do_sys_sync+0xe/0x20 [32.1625] do_syscall_64+0x73/0x450 [32.1626] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e [32.1627] RIP: 0033:0x7f0c28d05d2b [32.1632] RSP: 002b:00007ffc9d988048 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX:00000000000000a2 [32.1634] RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00007ffc9d988228 RCX:00007f0c28d05d2b [32.1636] RDX: 00007f0c28e02301 RSI: 00007ffc9d989b21 RDI:00007f0c28dba90d [32.1637] RBP: 0000000000000001 R08: 0000000000000001 R09:0000000000000000 [32.1639] R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000246 R12:000055b96572cb80 [32.1641] R13: 000055b96572b19f R14: 00007f0c28dfa434 R15:000055b96572b034 [32.1643] </TASK> [32.1644] irq event stamp: 0 [32.1644] hardirqs last enabled at (0): [<0000000000000000>] 0x0 [32.1646] hardirqs last disabled at (0): [<ffffffff81298817>]copy_process+0xb37/0x2260 [32.1648] softirqs last enabled at (0): [<ffffffff81298817>]copy_process+0xb37/0x2260 [32.1650] softirqs last disabled at (0): [<0000000000000000>] 0x0 [32.1652] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---

Furthermore, this list corruption eventually (when we happen to add a new block group) results in getting the switch_commits and dirty_cowonly_roots lists mixed up and attempting to call update_root on the tree root which can't be found in the tree root, resulting in a transaction abort:

[87.8269] BTRFS critical (device nvme1n1): unable to find root key (1 0 0) in tree 1 [87.8272] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [87.8274] BTRFS: Transaction aborted (error -117) [87.8275] WARNING: fs/btrfs/root-tree.c:153 at 0x0, CPU#4: sync/703 [87.8285] CPU: 4 UID: 0 PID: 703 Comm: sync Not tainted 6.18.0 #25 PREEMPT(none) [87.8287] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 1.17.0-4.fc41 0 ---truncated---

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.1, 6.1.165, 6.6.128, 6.12.75, 6.18.14, 6.19.4, 7.0
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.170-1
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.85-1
  • linux Debian 14 6.18.14-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-46251

  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-134.134
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1060.63
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1063.69
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1058.64
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1060.61
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1063.71
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1045.48
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1060.64

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-46251

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

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-2026-46251 updated cvss 3.3

kernel: btrfs: fix block_group_tree dirty_list corruption

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

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
CNA 3.1 8.4 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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.