CVE-2026-90263: btrfs: check if root is readonly when setting posix acl

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 2026-10-30

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: check if root is readonly when setting posix acl For a filesystem which has btrfs read-only property set to true, all write operations including acl and xattr should be denied. However, acl can still be set even if btrfs ro property is true. This happens because no function on the set_acl code path checks the root is readonly or not. It was checked in btrfs_setxattr_trans() but got removed in commit 353c2ea735e4 ("btrfs: remove redundant readonly root check in btrfs_setxattr_trans") That commit didn't check if all the callers properly check the root's read-only flag. A previous fix is commit b51111271b03 ("btrfs: check if root is readonly while setting security xattr"). Always check if the root is read-only before performing the set acl operation.

Affected products

Linux: 5.2 — fixed in 7.3

How to fix

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

References

Get alerted when CVE-2026-90263 or the next vulnerability affects your stack