CVEvulnerability
CVE-2026-45858
5.5 MEDIUM
Official page ↗
- Status
- Analyzed
- Published
- 2026-05-27
- Last modified
- 2026-06-25
- Assigner
- 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
- CVSS 3.1 ([email protected])
- 5.5 MEDIUM — CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ext4: don't zero the entire extent if EXT4_EXT_DATA_PARTIAL_VALID1
When allocating initialized blocks from a large unwritten extent, or
when splitting an unwritten extent during end I/O and converting it to
initialized, there is currently a potential issue of stale data if the
extent needs to be split in the middle.
0 A B N
[UUUUUUUUUUUU] U: unwritten extent
[--DDDDDDDD--] D: valid data
|<- ->| ----> this range needs to be initialized
ext4_split_extent() first try to split this extent at B with
EXT4_EXT_DATA_ENTIRE_VALID1 and EXT4_EXT_MAY_ZEROOUT flag set, but
ext4_split_extent_at() failed to split this extent due to temporary lack
of space. It zeroout B to N and mark the entire extent from 0 to N
as written.
0 A B N
[WWWWWWWWWWWW] W: written extent
[SSDDDDDDDDZZ] Z: zeroed, S: stale data
ext4_split_extent() then try to split this extent at A with
EXT4_EXT_DATA_VALID2 flag set. This time, it split successfully and left
a stale written extent from 0 to A.
0 A B N
[WW|WWWWWWWWWW]
[SS|DDDDDDDDZZ]
Fix this by pass EXT4_EXT_DATA_PARTIAL_VALID1 to ext4_split_extent_at()
when splitting at B, don't convert the entire extent to written and left
it as unwritten after zeroing out B to N. The remaining work is just
like the standard two-part split. ext4_split_extent() will pass the
EXT4_EXT_DATA_VALID2 flag when it calls ext4_split_extent_at() for the
second time, allowing it to properly handle the split. If the split is
successful, it will keep extent from 0 to A as unwritten.
Affected configurations
• linux linux kernel (>= 3.2.33 < 3.3)
• linux linux kernel (>= 3.4.16 < 3.5)
• linux linux kernel (>= 3.6.4 < 3.7)
• linux linux kernel (>= 3.7.1 < 6.6.130)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.7 < 6.12.75)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.13 < 6.18.14)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.19 < 6.19.4)
• linux linux kernel 3.7
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1bf6974822d1dba86cf11b5f05498581cf3488a2 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/58ddae5d77b1db3a27b891c75a8fa120239ac092 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7015fcf473796e1d2d876f241bd9e0c36f3d4eef Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d17857b4fb9ba5745b59be0ef38fd532991fccbf Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d67c8ecf3d8fda9b8ef80e6f665d84b6d6ac9d88 Patch