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Fencer Vulns
high 7.5

CVE-2026-72203 json

ntfs: skip extent mft records in writeback to prevent deadlock

published 2026-08-15 2 mo ago modified 2026-10-30 9 d ago also EUVD-2026-58961

cvss
7.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.6%
EPSS 0.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 50%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

ntfs: skip extent mft records in writeback to prevent deadlock

This patch fixes the ABBA deadlock between extent_lock and extent mrec_lock triggered by xfstests generic/113, that occurs since the commit 6994acf33bae ("ntfs: use base mft_no when looking up base inode for extent record").

Path A (inode writeback): VFS writeback -> ntfs_write_inode() -> __ntfs_write_inode() -> mutex_lock(&ni->extent_lock) -> mutex_lock(&tni->mrec_lock)

Path B (MFT folio writeback): VFS writeback of $MFT dirty folios -> ntfs_mft_writepages() -> ntfs_write_mft_block() -> ntfs_may_write_mft_record() -> holds one extent mrec_lock from a previous iteration -> tries to acquire another base inode extent_lock

By removing all extent_lock and extent mrec_lock acquisition from the MFT folio writeback path, the ABBA lock ordering is eliminated:

Path A: __ntfs_write_inode(): extent_lock -> mrec_lock Path B (removed): ntfs_write_mft_block(): mrec_lock -> extent_lock

Path B is always redundant for extent records because:

1. mark_mft_record_dirty(ext_ni) does NOT dirty the MFT folio. It only sets NInoDirty(ext_ni) and marks the base VFS inode dirty via __mark_inode_dirty(I_DIRTY_DATASYNC), which triggers Path A. Therefore, normal extent modifications never create a situation where the MFT folio is dirty and Path B is not scheduled.

2. The MFT folio only gets dirtied via ntfs_mft_mark_dirty() inside ntfs_mft_record_alloc(). But all identified callers in attrib.c (ntfs_attr_add, ntfs_attr_record_move_away, ntfs_attr_make_non_resident, ntfs_attr_record_resize) follow through with mark_mft_record_dirty(), which triggers Path A to write the complete record.

3. ntfs_evict_big_inode() calls ntfs_commit_inode() before freeing extent inodes, ensuring all dirty extents are flushed via Path A before the base inode leaves the icache.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.1.191, 6.6.160, 7.1.5, 7.2
  • linux Debian 14 7.1.5-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-72203

  • kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.161.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-96168

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-2026-72203 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: ntfs: skip extent mft records in writeback to prevent deadlock

  • 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 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

0.63% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 50% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

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