What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2024-40972: ext4: do not create EA inode under buffer lock

• Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2024-07-12 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-667

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ext4: do not create EA inode under buffer lock ext4_xattr_set_entry() creates new EA inodes while holding buffer lock on the external xattr block. This is problematic as it nests all the allocation locking (which acquires locks on other buffers) under the buffer lock. This can even deadlock when the filesystem is corrupted and e.g. quota file is setup to contain xattr block as data block. Move the allocation of EA inode out of ext4_xattr_set_entry() into the callers.

Affected products

• Linux kernel: before 6.1.107; from 6.2 before 6.6.47; from 6.7 before 6.9.7 — fixed in 6.1.107, 6.6.47, 6.9.7

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.1.107, 6.6.47, 6.9.7. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0752e7fb549d90c33b4d4186f11cfd25a556d1dd
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0a46ef234756dca04623b7591e8ebb3440622f0b
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/111103907234bffd0a34fba070ad9367de058752
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/737fb7853acd5bc8984f6f42e4bfba3334be8ae1
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0a46ef234756dca04623b7591e8ebb3440622f0b
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/111103907234bffd0a34fba070ad9367de058752
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/01/msg00001.html

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