CVE-2026-89772
NoneCVSS
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EPSS
0.2%
Published
Sep 11, 2026
CISA due date
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Cloudanix analysis
A flaw in Linux's btrfs storage code can let changes to memory-mapped files be lost or corrupted while the system is saving them to disk.
- Exploitation
- Local Privilege
- Attacker needs
- Local User
- Complexity
- Moderate
- Impact
- Data Tampering
- Component
- OS kernel
- Class
- Race Condition
- Remediation
- Upgrade
- Effort
- Medium
- Patch risk
- Low
What it actually does
Missing folio_mkclean call during btrfs extent writeback allows mmap writers to alter folio contents after dirty checks but before final submission, breaking checksum/compression stability and dirty tracking for large, subpage, zoned, inline, EOF-spanning, or compressed folios.
Why it matters to the business
Data corruption, silent loss of writes despite fsync, and inconsistent filesystem state on btrfs volumes, increasing risk of application failures or recovery overhead in Linux storage environments.
How an attack unfolds
An attacker maps a file on a btrfs filesystem and races modifications against kernel writeback paths (extent_write_cache_pages, lock_delalloc_folios, run_delalloc_compressed) that omitted folio write-protection, allowing in-flight changes that produce invalid checksums or dropped updates.
How to fix it
Apply the upstream patch series restoring folio_clear_dirty_for_io and folio_mkclean semantics in extent_write_cache_pages, lock_delalloc_folios, and related btrfs writeback paths; update to a kernel containing commit 095be159f3eb and follow-on fixes.
How to confirm the fix worked
Confirm the presence of the corrected folio write-protection calls in extent_write_cache_pages and lock_delalloc_folios; test with mmap writers concurrent to writeback on large, subpage, and compressed folios; verify no checksum errors or lost writes after fsync.
Typical attack path
- Obtain write access and mmap a file on btrfs
- Trigger or wait for kernel writeback of the folio
- Modify bytes in the mapped range during the unprotected window
- Trigger checksum verification or fsync to observe corruption or lost data
How to detect it
Inspect kernel logs for btrfs checksum failures, writeback errors, or inconsistent dirty tracking; review audit logs for processes performing mmap and concurrent writes on btrfs files during high I/O periods.
What your security team should do
- Prioritize kernel updates containing the btrfs writeback folio protection fix
- Monitor btrfs error and checksum mismatch logs on affected systems
- Evaluate temporary mitigation by avoiding subpage sector sizes or compression on high-risk workloads until patched
The record
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: write-protect folios during data writeback commit 095be159f3eb ("btrfs: unify folio dirty flag clearing") replaced the folio_clear_dirty_for_io() call in extent_write_cache_pages() with a plain folio_test_dirty() check. Besides clearing the dirty flag, folio_clear_dirty_for_io() also calls folio_mkclean(), which write-protects the shared mmap PTEs mapping the folio. Note that we still do call folio_clear_dirty_for_io() later in submit_one_sector() when we clear dirty on the last sector of the folio (the only sector for non-subpage cases). But we lost this early call in extent_write_cache_pages(). Without the extra write-protection, a process with the file mmap-ed can modify a sector while it is being used by writeback in a way that expects a stable folio (checksumming, compressing, copying, etc...) without faulting, which manifests as a handful of concrete bugs. 1. For large folios or subpage sectorsize, it is possible to submit a bio which does not cover the whole folio. When this happens, we will have a bio in flight for a folio that we have *not* called folio_clear_dirty_for_io() on. If a task with an existing mmap-ed PTE writes (without faulting..) in this window, it can result in corruptions. If the write arrives while the checksumming or writing itself is underway, this can result in an invalid checksum and later corruption reports on read. If the write arrives after checksumming/writing is done but before the last sector dirty is cleared, then the write is present in page cache but doesn't affect the dirty tracking and will be lost when the folio is fully finished being submitted and the dirty bit is cleared. This results in losing the write even if fsync() is called. 2. For zoned submissions which are done in batch separate from the main extent_writepage() loop, we also risk csum violations for those submissions. Zoned writes are clamped to max_zone_append_size and are not aligned with folios, so a submission can span two folios. The first folio being processed in extent_write_cache_pages() will call extent_write_locked_range() which will submit the partial range of the next folio, while the rest of that folio could still be dirty. So clearing dirty on the submitted sectors doesn't call folio_clear_dirty_for_io() and we have the same issue. Since extent_write_cache_pages() skips these batch submitted folios (they are already marked for writeback from submission by the preceding folio), we must add the extra write protection in lock_delalloc_folios(). 3. For inline extents this will subtly risk losing writes that happen after/while we copy the inline extent but before we clear dirty on the folio. 4. For folios spanning EOF, mmap could tamper with the zeroed bytes past EOF and cause them to be persisted where future faults would improperly see them instead of zeros. 5. Finally, for compressed extents, we risk modifying the folios while we work on compressing them which will result in corrupted compressed data. Specifically, in run_delalloc_compressed() we queue up work to do compress_file_range() in BTRFS_COMPRESSION_CHUNK_SIZE (512K) chunks which will call btrfs_folio_clamp_clear_dirty() on the range. For non-subpage, this will always clear the whole folio, safely. For subpage, we risk a partial clear here as well. In particular, imagine a 2M folio broken up into 512K chunks of work which might start compression work on one chunk before all the chunks compress_file_range() workers have gotten far enough to finish clearing all the dirty bitmaps of the folio and getting to folio_clear_dirty_for_io(). Large folios on the edges of submission ranges are similarly at risk to be only partly cleared. This particular gap was introduced by a second patch in the same series: commit a4ef54dbb576 ("btrfs: make extent_range_clear_dirty_for_io() to handle sector size < page size cases") We cannot simply restore the call to folio_clear ---truncated---
Affected packages
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