CVE-2026-31434: btrfs: fix leak of kobject name for sub-group space_info

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: 2026-04-22 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-401

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: fix leak of kobject name for sub-group space_info When create_space_info_sub_group() allocates elements of space_info->sub_group[], kobject_init_and_add() is called for each element via btrfs_sysfs_add_space_info_type(). However, when check_removing_space_info() frees these elements, it does not call btrfs_sysfs_remove_space_info() on them. As a result, kobject_put() is not called and the associated kobj->name objects are leaked. This memory leak is reproduced by running the blktests test case zbd/009 on kernels built with CONFIG_DEBUG_KMEMLEAK. The kmemleak feature reports the following error: unreferenced object 0xffff888112877d40 (size 16): comm "mount", pid 1244, jiffies 4294996972 hex dump (first 16 bytes): 64 61 74 61 2d 72 65 6c 6f 63 00 c4 c6 a7 cb 7f data-reloc...... backtrace (crc 53ffde4d): __kmalloc_node_track_caller_noprof+0x619/0x870 kstrdup+0x42/0xc0 kobject_set_name_vargs+0x44/0x110 kobject_init_and_add+0xcf/0x150 btrfs_sysfs_add_space_info_type+0xfc/0x210 [btrfs] create_space_info_sub_group.constprop.0+0xfb/0x1b0 [btrfs] create_space_info+0x211/0x320 [btrfs] btrfs_init_space_info+0x15a/0x1b0 [btrfs] open_ctree+0x33c7/0x4a50 [btrfs] btrfs_get_tree.cold+0x9f/0x1ee [btrfs] vfs_get_tree+0x87/0x2f0 vfs_cmd_create+0xbd/0x280 __do_sys_fsconfig+0x3df/0x990 do_syscall_64+0x136/0x1540 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e To avoid the leak, call btrfs_sysfs_remove_space_info() instead of kfree() for the elements.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 6.1.162 before 6.1.168; from 6.6.122 before 6.6.131; from 6.12.67 before 6.12.80; from 6.16 before 6.18.21; from 6.19 before 6.19.11; 7.0-rc1, 7.0-rc2, 7.0-rc3, 7.0-rc4, 7.0-rc5, 7.0-rc6 — fixed in 6.1.168, 6.12.80, 6.18.21, 6.19.11, 6.6.131

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.1.168, 6.12.80, 6.18.21, 6.19.11. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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