CVE-2026-68150
NoneCVSS
—
EPSS
0.2%
Published
Aug 10, 2026
CISA due date
—
Cloudanix analysis
A bug in the Linux kernel's handling of frozen filesystems can cause internal warnings or instability when the system tries to thaw them during an emergency recovery.
- Exploitation
- Local Privilege
- Attacker needs
- Local User
- Complexity
- Moderate
- Impact
- Other
- Component
- OS kernel
- Class
- Race Condition
- Remediation
- Patch
- Effort
- Low
- Patch risk
- Low
What it actually does
Double unlock of the s_umount rwsem during do_thaw_all() iteration over superblocks when thaw_super_locked() releases the lock on every path while __iterate_supers() also releases it, corrupting rwsem state and triggering DEBUG_RWSEMS warnings.
Why it matters to the business
Kernel warnings or potential filesystem instability during emergency thaw operations on frozen filesystems, which may interrupt recovery procedures and require system restarts in affected Linux environments.
How an attack unfolds
An attacker with local access triggers an emergency filesystem thaw via sysrq or similar mechanism on a system with frozen superblocks; the flawed callback path executes the double unlock, producing rwsem corruption warnings during the thaw process.
How to fix it
Update to a kernel containing the fix that switches do_thaw_all() to SUPER_ITER_UNLOCKED iteration and uses super_lock_excl() before thaw_super_locked(), while removing the dead return statement.
How to confirm the fix worked
Verify the kernel source contains the corrected __iterate_supers() call pattern with SUPER_ITER_UNLOCKED and confirm absence of the DEBUG_RWSEMS warning during simulated emergency thaw operations on test systems.
Typical attack path
- Obtain local access to a Linux system
- Freeze one or more filesystems
- Trigger emergency thaw via sysrq or equivalent mechanism
- Observe rwsem double-unlock and DEBUG_RWSEMS warning in kernel logs
How to detect it
Search kernel logs and dmesg for DEBUG_RWSEMS_WARN_ON messages referencing up_write during do_thaw_all or __iterate_supers, and for sysrq emergency thaw events coinciding with rwsem corruption warnings.
- DEBUG_RWSEMS_WARN_ON((rwsem_owner(sem) != current)
- Emergency Thaw of all frozen filesystems
- up_write+0xaf/0x170
- Workqueue: events do_thaw_all
What your security team should do
- Apply the corrected kernel version as soon as it is available from the distribution
- Monitor kernel logs for rwsem-related warnings during any thaw operations
- Avoid reliance on emergency thaw in production until patched
The record
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: fs/super: fix emergency thaw double-unlock of s_umount do_thaw_all() iterates over all superblocks via __iterate_supers() with SUPER_ITER_EXCL, which acquires s_umount exclusively before calling the callback and releases it afterwards. However, the callback do_thaw_all_callback() calls thaw_super_locked() which unconditionally releases s_umount on every code path. This results in a second unlock attempt in __iterate_supers() that corrupts the rwsem state, triggering a DEBUG_RWSEMS warning: [ 182.601148] sysrq: Emergency Thaw of all frozen filesystems [ 182.601865] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [ 182.602375] DEBUG_RWSEMS_WARN_ON((rwsem_owner(sem) != current) && !rwsem_test_oflags(sem, RWSEM_NONSPINNABLE)): count = 0x0, magic = 0xffff99b1011e5870, owner = 0x0, curr 0xffff99b101b06c80, list not empty [ 182.603817] WARNING: kernel/locking/rwsem.c:1412 at up_write+0xa3/0x170, CPU#2: kworker/2:1/53 [ 182.604578] Modules linked in: [ 182.604864] CPU: 2 UID: 0 PID: 53 Comm: kworker/2:1 Not tainted 7.2.0-rc4-00001-gbd3bd93ea98a-dirty #4 PREEMPT(lazy) [ 182.605711] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.13.0-1kylin1 04/01/2014 [ 182.606417] Workqueue: events do_thaw_all [ 182.606750] RIP: 0010:up_write+0xaf/0x170 [ 182.607076] Code: 19 3a 92 48 0f 44 c2 48 8b 55 08 48 8b 55 00 4c 8b 45 08 48 8b 55 00 48 8d 3d ad 91 e0 01 48 8b 4d 20 50 48 c7 c6 f0 8c 26 92 <67> 48 0f b9 3a e8 d7 93 4e 00 58 eb 81 48 83 7f 18 00 48 c7 c2 8d [ 182.608563] RSP: 0018:ffffb670001d7e08 EFLAGS: 00010246 [ 182.609007] RAX: ffffffff92349e8d RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: ffff99b1011e5870 [ 182.609595] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: ffffffff92268cf0 RDI: ffffffff92914d10 [ 182.610283] RBP: ffff99b1011e5870 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: ffff99b101b06c80 [ 182.610847] R10: ffff99b10139a808 R11: fefefefefefefeff R12: 0000000000000000 [ 182.611414] R13: ffffffff90cf74d0 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: ffff99b1011e5800 [ 182.612009] FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff99b1eaaee000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 182.612670] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 182.613146] CR2: 00000000005c631c CR3: 00000000013ee000 CR4: 00000000000006f0 [ 182.613722] Call Trace: [ 182.613946] <TASK> [ 182.614130] __iterate_supers+0x128/0x150 [ 182.614463] do_thaw_all+0x1b/0x30 [ 182.614759] process_scheduled_works+0xbb/0x3f0 [ 182.615150] ? __pfx_worker_thread+0x10/0x10 [ 182.615499] worker_thread+0x129/0x270 [ 182.615816] ? __pfx_worker_thread+0x10/0x10 [ 182.616201] kthread+0xe2/0x120 [ 182.616469] ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10 [ 182.616792] ret_from_fork+0x15b/0x240 [ 182.617115] ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10 [ 182.617426] ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 [ 182.617761] </TASK> [ 182.617968] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- [ 182.618412] Emergency Thaw complete Fix this by switching to SUPER_ITER_UNLOCKED and acquiring s_umount in the callback via super_lock_excl() before calling thaw_super_locked(). This matches the locking pattern expected by thaw_super_locked() and eliminates the double unlock. While at it, remove the dead 'return;' at the end of do_thaw_all_callback().
Affected packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Introduced | Fixed |
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