CVE-2026-90260 PUBLISHED

btrfs: zoned: don't clobber the extent buffer when zeroing it out

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 11.09.2026 Published: 17.09.2026 Updated: 17.09.2026

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

btrfs: zoned: don't clobber the extent buffer when zeroing it out

On a zoned filesystem a freed-but-still-dirty tree block is written out as zeros (EXTENT_BUFFER_ZONED_ZEROOUT) only to keep the zone write pointer advancing. btree_csum_one_bio() implemented this by memzeroing the extent buffer's own folios before submission.

That destroys the in-memory buffer while it may still be referenced. In particular btrfs_free_tree_block() can run on it afterwards and reads the header to add a delayed reference; once the header has been zeroed it frees bytenr 0 and corrupts the extent tree (the btrfs_header_bytenr(buf) != 0 ASSERT in btrfs_free_tree_block(), or an "unable to find ref" abort). It is flaky and reproduces under fsstress, e.g. generic/461 and generic/013.

Write the zeros to disk from the shared zero page instead and leave the extent buffer content untouched, so any later reference - including the delayed reference from btrfs_free_tree_block() - still sees a valid header. end_bbio_meta_write() now clears writeback on the buffer's own folios, as the bio no longer carries them.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from aa6313e6ff2bfbf736a2739047bba355d8241584 to 92484ad014f2e2b0e0e7bbc1610951e978cf557c (excl.)
  • affected from aa6313e6ff2bfbf736a2739047bba355d8241584 to 98e3747587f9f87f010d8d7e55786216249a94af (excl.)
  • affected from aa6313e6ff2bfbf736a2739047bba355d8241584 to db4b9eefc8ee0bcaeee4d5e6a7313905f6a2fe7c (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 6.8 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 6.8 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.52 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2.6 to 7.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.3-rc1 to * (incl.)

References