CVE-2026-23267: f2fs: fix IS_CHECKPOINTED flag inconsistency issue caused by concurrent atomic commit and checkpoint writes

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-03-18 · updated 2026-06-17

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: f2fs: fix IS_CHECKPOINTED flag inconsistency issue caused by concurrent atomic commit and checkpoint writes During SPO tests, when mounting F2FS, an -EINVAL error was returned from f2fs_recover_inode_page. The issue occurred under the following scenario Thread A Thread B f2fs_ioc_commit_atomic_write - f2fs_do_sync_file // atomic = true - f2fs_fsync_node_pages : last_folio = inode folio : schedule before folio_lock(last_folio) f2fs_write_checkpoint - block_operations// writeback last_folio - schedule before f2fs_flush_nat_entries : set_fsync_mark(last_folio, 1) : set_dentry_mark(last_folio, 1) : folio_mark_dirty(last_folio) - __write_node_folio(last_folio) : f2fs_down_read(&sbi->node_write)//block - f2fs_flush_nat_entries : {struct nat_entry}->flag |= BIT(IS_CHECKPOINTED) - unblock_operations : f2fs_up_write(&sbi->node_write) f2fs_write_checkpoint//return : f2fs_do_write_node_page() f2fs_ioc_commit_atomic_write//return SPO Thread A calls f2fs_need_dentry_mark(sbi, ino), and the last_folio has already been written once. However, the {struct nat_entry}->flag did not have the IS_CHECKPOINTED set, causing set_dentry_mark(last_folio, 1) and write last_folio again after Thread B finishes f2fs_write_checkpoint. After SPO and reboot, it was detected that {struct node_info}->blk_addr was not NULL_ADDR because Thread B successfully write the checkpoint. This issue only occurs in atomic write scenarios. For regular file fsync operations, the folio must be dirty. If block_operations->f2fs_sync_node_pages successfully submit the folio write, this path will not be executed. Otherwise, the f2fs_write_checkpoint will need to wait for the folio write submission to complete, as sbi->nr_pages[F2FS_DIRTY_NODES] > 0. Therefore, the situation where f2fs_need_dentry_mark checks that the {struct nat_entry}->flag /wo the IS_CHECKPOINTED flag, but the folio write has already been submitted, will not occur. Therefore, for atomic file fsync, sbi->node_write should be acquired through __write_node_folio to ensure that the IS_CHECKPOINTED flag correctly indicates that the checkpoint write has been completed.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 4.7 before 6.1.164; from 6.2 before 6.6.127; from 6.7 before 6.12.74; from 6.13 before 6.18.13; from 6.19 before 6.19.3 — fixed in 6.1.164, 6.12.74, 6.18.13, 6.19.3, 6.6.127

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.1.164, 6.12.74, 6.18.13, 6.19.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

Get alerted when CVE-2026-23267 or the next vulnerability affects your stack