CVE-2023-54032
NoneCVSS
—
EPSS
0.2%
Published
Dec 24, 2025
CISA due date
—
Cloudanix analysis
A flaw in Linux storage handling can cause computers to crash when certain quota settings are changed.
- Exploitation
- Local Privilege
- Attacker needs
- Local User
- Complexity
- Moderate
- Impact
- Denial Of Service
- Component
- OS kernel
- Class
- Race Condition
- Remediation
- Upgrade
- Effort
- Medium
- Patch risk
- Low
What it actually does
Race condition in btrfs when disabling quotas deletes quota root from fs_info->dirty_cowonly_roots without holding btrfs_fs_info::trans_lock, allowing concurrent list manipulation via add_root_to_dirty_list and resulting in crashes such as general protection faults in commit_cowonly_roots.
Why it matters to the business
Potential kernel crashes or filesystem instability on Linux systems using btrfs when quotas are disabled, leading to unplanned downtime or service disruption in environments relying on that storage backend.
How an attack unfolds
An attacker with local access triggers concurrent quota disable operations alongside other btrfs transactions that manipulate the dirty cow roots list, exploiting the missing lock to corrupt internal kernel structures and induce a crash during transaction commit.
How to fix it
Upgrade affected Linux kernel packages to versions containing commit 365f318da7384cbac5de6b9c098914888a4d63e7 or later; for opencost and opencost-compat packages update to 1.115.0-r2 or newer.
How to confirm the fix worked
Verify kernel version includes the referenced commit; test by enabling then disabling quotas under concurrent balance workloads and confirm absence of general protection faults in commit_cowonly_roots.
Typical attack path
- Obtain local access on a system using btrfs
- Enable quotas on a btrfs filesystem
- Trigger quota disable while other processes perform balance or transaction operations
- Cause concurrent list manipulation without trans_lock
- Trigger crash in commit_cowonly_roots during btrfs_commit_transaction
How to detect it
Search kernel logs and crash reports for general protection faults referencing commit_cowonly_roots, btrfs_commit_transaction, or the exact RIP address from the provided stack trace; correlate with quota disable or balance ioctl activity.
- commit_cowonly_roots+0x11f/0x250 [btrfs]
- general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdead000000000108
- btrfs_balance+0xa50/0x11e0 [btrfs]
- reset_balance_state+0x152/0x1b0 [btrfs]
What your security team should do
- Apply kernel updates containing the fix immediately on all btrfs-using systems
- Monitor for btrfs-related crashes in system logs
- Restrict local user access on systems where quota operations are frequent until patched
The record
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: fix race when deleting quota root from the dirty cow roots list When disabling quotas we are deleting the quota root from the list fs_info->dirty_cowonly_roots without taking the lock that protects it, which is struct btrfs_fs_info::trans_lock. This unsynchronized list manipulation may cause chaos if there's another concurrent manipulation of this list, such as when adding a root to it with ctree.c:add_root_to_dirty_list(). This can result in all sorts of weird failures caused by a race, such as the following crash: [337571.278245] general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdead000000000108: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP PTI [337571.278933] CPU: 1 PID: 115447 Comm: btrfs Tainted: G W 6.4.0-rc6-btrfs-next-134+ #1 [337571.279153] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.14.0-0-g155821a1990b-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 [337571.279572] RIP: 0010:commit_cowonly_roots+0x11f/0x250 [btrfs] [337571.279928] Code: 85 38 06 00 (...) [337571.280363] RSP: 0018:ffff9f63446efba0 EFLAGS: 00010206 [337571.280582] RAX: ffff942d98ec2638 RBX: ffff9430b82b4c30 RCX: 0000000449e1c000 [337571.280798] RDX: dead000000000100 RSI: ffff9430021e4900 RDI: 0000000000036070 [337571.281015] RBP: ffff942d98ec2000 R08: ffff942d98ec2000 R09: 000000000000015b [337571.281254] R10: 0000000000000009 R11: 0000000000000001 R12: ffff942fe8fbf600 [337571.281476] R13: ffff942dabe23040 R14: ffff942dabe20800 R15: ffff942d92cf3b48 [337571.281723] FS: 00007f478adb7340(0000) GS:ffff94349fa40000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [337571.281950] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [337571.282184] CR2: 00007f478ab9a3d5 CR3: 000000001e02c001 CR4: 0000000000370ee0 [337571.282416] DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 [337571.282647] DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 [337571.282874] Call Trace: [337571.283101] <TASK> [337571.283327] ? __die_body+0x1b/0x60 [337571.283570] ? die_addr+0x39/0x60 [337571.283796] ? exc_general_protection+0x22e/0x430 [337571.284022] ? asm_exc_general_protection+0x22/0x30 [337571.284251] ? commit_cowonly_roots+0x11f/0x250 [btrfs] [337571.284531] btrfs_commit_transaction+0x42e/0xf90 [btrfs] [337571.284803] ? _raw_spin_unlock+0x15/0x30 [337571.285031] ? release_extent_buffer+0x103/0x130 [btrfs] [337571.285305] reset_balance_state+0x152/0x1b0 [btrfs] [337571.285578] btrfs_balance+0xa50/0x11e0 [btrfs] [337571.285864] ? __kmem_cache_alloc_node+0x14a/0x410 [337571.286086] btrfs_ioctl+0x249a/0x3320 [btrfs] [337571.286358] ? mod_objcg_state+0xd2/0x360 [337571.286577] ? refill_obj_stock+0xb0/0x160 [337571.286798] ? seq_release+0x25/0x30 [337571.287016] ? __rseq_handle_notify_resume+0x3ba/0x4b0 [337571.287235] ? percpu_counter_add_batch+0x2e/0xa0 [337571.287455] ? __x64_sys_ioctl+0x88/0xc0 [337571.287675] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x88/0xc0 [337571.287901] do_syscall_64+0x38/0x90 [337571.288126] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x72/0xdc [337571.288352] RIP: 0033:0x7f478aaffe9b So fix this by locking struct btrfs_fs_info::trans_lock before deleting the quota root from that list.
Affected packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Introduced | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Linux | Kernel | 3.6.0 | 4.14.322 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 | kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP6_Update_19 | 0 | 1-150600.13.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | kernel-64kb | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | kernel-default-base | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1.150600.12.38.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | kernel-docs | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | kernel-syms | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | kernel-zfcpdump | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1.150600.12.38.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | kernel-docs | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | kernel-syms | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | dtb-aarch64 | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-64kb | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-debug | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1.150600.12.38.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-docs | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-kvmsmall | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-obs-qa | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-syms | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-zfcpdump | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
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