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Fencer Vulns
no cvss —

CVE-2026-92500 json

ext4: use fsdata to track inline data write state and fix race

published 2026-09-17 52 d ago modified 2026-10-19 20 d ago also EUVD-2026-82121

cvss
—
not scored
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 12%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

ext4: use fsdata to track inline data write state and fix race

Instead of checking the live inode state (ext4_has_inline_data(inode) and ext4_test_inode_state(inode, EXT4_STATE_MAY_INLINE_DATA)) in the write_end handlers, use the fsdata parameter of the address space operations to explicitly pass down the state in which write_begin prepared the write.

A concurrent thread (such as ext4_page_mkwrite()) can convert the inline data to an extent between write_begin and write_end. If this happens, the write_end handlers would previously miss the inline write_end path and fall through to extent-based write_end logic. However, since block buffers were never allocated in write_begin, this resulted in NULL pointer dereferences or data loss because folio_buffers(folio) was NULL.

Define EXT4_WRITE_DATA_INLINE (4) as a bit flag (Bit 2), treating fsdata as bitwise flags rather than mutually exclusive enums to keep states of the write path independent. Communicate this state via fsdata: 1) ext4_write_begin() and ext4_da_write_begin() set the EXT4_WRITE_DATA_INLINE bit in *fsdata via bitwise OR when an inline write is successfully prepared. 2) On entry, ext4_write_begin() clears the EXT4_WRITE_DATA_INLINE bit to safely handle VFS retries (where generic_perform_write() bypasses the fsdata initialization on its retry jump). 3) The write_end handlers perform a bitwise AND to check if the EXT4_WRITE_DATA_INLINE bit is set and invoke the inline write_end helper accordingly.

Furthermore, during a buffered write, ext4_write_inline_data_end() acquires the xattr lock after preparing the write. If a concurrent page fault (ext4_page_mkwrite()) converts the inline data to an extent after the write_end handlers check the state but before ext4_write_inline_data_end() acquires the xattr write lock, the subsequent check will trigger a kernel panic via BUG_ON(!ext4_has_inline_data(inode)).

To keep git history working and bisectability clean, replace the BUG_ON check in ext4_write_inline_data_end() with a graceful error- handling retry path in this same commit. If the inline data is cleared after locking the xattr, we safely release all resources (releasing iloc.bh, unlocking/putting the folio, stopping the active journal transaction handle) and return 0 (VFS retry) to let the generic write path retry the operation safely.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.18.52, 7.2.6, 7.3
  • linux Debian 14 7.2.6-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-92500

  • linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1016.17
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1016.18
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1017.17
  • linux-riscv Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42.1
  • linux-oracle Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1015.16
  • linux-hwe-7.0 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42~24.04.1
  • linux-oem-7.0 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1017.17

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-92500

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-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.84.1
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.84.1
  • kernel-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.84.1
  • kernel-source SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.84.1
  • kernel-default SLE Workstation Extension 15 SP7, SLE Module for Legacy 15 SP7, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 +2 more 6.4.0-150700.53.84.1
  • kernel-zfcpdump SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.84.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.84.1
  • kernel-default-base SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.84.1.150700.17.47.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:4706-1SUSE-SU-2026:4640-1SUSE-SU-2026:24316-1SUSE-SU-2026:24315-1SUSE-SU-2026:24181-1SUSE-SU-2026:24182-1

  • kernel-source openSUSE Tumbleweed 7.2.8-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:11893-1

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-2026-92500 updated cvss 4.7

kernel: ext4: use fsdata to track inline data write state and fix race

  • 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 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 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8, openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”

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

0.22% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 12% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

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