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CVE-2026-90262: btrfs: retry verity reads for not-uptodate Merkle folios

• Severity: unknown
• 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: 2026-09-17 · updated 2026-10-19

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: retry verity reads for not-uptodate Merkle folios btrfs_read_merkle_tree_page() can find a folio in the mapping that is not uptodate. After taking the folio lock, the current code treats that state as a read error and returns -EIO. That can make a previous transient read failure sticky. If the failed read left a not-uptodate folio in the mapping, later callers find that folio and fail instead of retrying the read. Keep the existing page-cache insertion and locking order, but retry the Merkle item read when a not-uptodate folio is found in the mapping. Also unlock the folio when read_key_bytes() fails so that a later caller can lock it and retry the read.

Affected products

• Linux kernel: 6.6 — fixed in 7.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 7.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/12b6d1a1715cbced2e445ca353f9c9987b8636e2
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/81241f734f0f662378f5ffc53882b012923e6fe5
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8cc569696dac51fc62bb39b3b8f530582b916d29
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/90e9eae1b5907fa36620ffb7f4f1a4afa9333427
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c1fa005cdf3b7ff14cdfd7d512830088a3fc256b

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