Cloudanix VulnDB

CVE-2026-90264

None

CVSS

—

EPSS

0.2%

Published

Sep 17, 2026

CISA due date

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Cloudanix analysis

Schedule a fix SSVC: Track

A bug in Linux file writing for certain storage setups can make the system crash during specific combinations of write operations.

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 allowing insertion of overlapping ordered extents in btrfs when direct IO finishes short and triggers isize revert, bypassing conditional OE waiting in lock_and_cleanup_extent_if_need during subsequent buffered writes and resulting in kernel BUG/panic.

Why it matters to the business

Unexpected system crashes and denial of service on Linux servers or workloads using the btrfs filesystem during mixed direct and buffered write operations, with potential data availability impact in storage-heavy environments.

How an attack unfolds

An attacker crafts a sequence of direct IO writes that complete short followed immediately by append-style buffered writes; the reverted isize skips the ordered extent wait, allowing a finished but unreleased direct IO OE to conflict with the new buffered OE and trigger the panic in insert_ordered_extent.

How to fix it

Apply the upstream btrfs fix that makes ordered extent waiting unconditional, renames lock_and_cleanup_extent_if_need to remove the conditional suffix, and removes no-extent-locked handling branches; rebuild and deploy updated kernel images.

How to confirm the fix worked

Inspect kernel source for unconditional OE wait calls in btrfs_buffered_write paths, reproduce the original syzbot reproducer workload, and confirm absence of overlapping OE panics under direct-to-buffered fallback scenarios.

Typical attack path

  1. Issue direct IO write that finishes short on btrfs
  2. Revert isize to original value
  3. Perform append buffered write without extent lock wait
  4. Trigger insertion of conflicting ordered extent
  5. Cause kernel BUG at fs/btrfs/ordered-data.c:264

How to detect it

Search kernel logs and dmesg for BTRFS critical panic messages mentioning overlapping ordered extents or the insert_ordered_extent function; correlate with processes performing pwritev2 or direct IO on btrfs volumes.

  • BTRFS critical (device .*): panic in insert_ordered_extent
  • kernel BUG at fs/btrfs/ordered-data.c:264
  • overlapping ordered extents, existing oe file_offset

What your security team should do

  • Prioritize kernel updates containing the btrfs ordered extent fix on all btrfs-using systems
  • Monitor kernel logs for btrfs ordered extent related BUG messages
  • Test mixed direct and buffered write workloads after patching
  • Evaluate migration to alternative filesystems for high-availability btrfs deployments

The record

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: always wait for ordered extents to avoid OE races [BUG] Syzbot reported a bug that there can be conflicting OEs for the same range: BTRFS critical (device loop4): panic in insert_ordered_extent:264: overlapping ordered extents, existing oe file_offset 16384 num_bytes 430080 flags 0x1089, new oe file_offset 16384 num_bytes 430080 flags 0x80 (errno=-17 Object alrea[ 179.162726][ T6897] BTRFS critical (device loop4): panic in insert_ordered_extent:264: overlapping ordered extents, existing oe file_offset 16384 num_bytes 430080 flags 0x1089, new oe file_offset 16384 num_bytes 430080 flags 0x80 (errno=-17 Object already exists) ------------[ cut here ]------------ kernel BUG at fs/btrfs/ordered-data.c:264! Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 05/09/2026 RIP: 0010:btrfs_alloc_ordered_extent+0x943/0xad0 Call Trace: <TASK> cow_file_range+0x744/0x12a0 fallback_to_cow+0x5ea/0xa00 run_delalloc_nocow+0x110c/0x17a0 btrfs_run_delalloc_range+0xbe4/0x1c20 writepage_delalloc+0x104d/0x1ba0 btrfs_writepages+0x1667/0x28b0 do_writepages+0x338/0x560 filemap_fdatawrite_range+0x1f2/0x300 btrfs_fdatawrite_range+0x54/0xf0 btrfs_direct_write+0x6a0/0xc30 btrfs_do_write_iter+0x329/0x790 do_iter_readv_writev+0x624/0x8d0 vfs_writev+0x34c/0x990 __se_sys_pwritev2+0x17a/0x2a0 do_syscall_64+0x174/0x580 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f </TASK> ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- [CAUSE] Since commit ff66fe666233 ("btrfs: fix incorrect buffered IO fallback for append direct writes"), if the direct IO finished short, we will revert the isize back to the original one, so that append writes can be respected during the buffered fallback. Normally we rely on lock_and_cleanup_extent_if_need() function during buffered writeback to wait for any existing ordered extents. But that ordered extent waiting only happens if the start_pos is inside the isize. Since we have reverted the isize during failed direct IO, we will not wait for any ordered extents. This means we can have a race where the direct IO OE is still in the tree, finished but not yet removed, then we're inserting the OE for the buffered write, causing the above crash. [FIX] Make the OE wait to be unconditional, to handle the reverted isize situation. And since lock_and_cleanup_extent_if_need() now either lock the extents or return -EAGAIN, also remove the branches that handles no-extent-locked cases, and rename it to remove the "_if_need" suffix. The following micro benchmark shows the runtime difference for btrfs_buffered_write(), doing `xfs_io -f -c "pwrite 0 1m"` workload, all values are the average runtime in nano seconds. function runtime | before | after -----------------------------------+-------------+--------------- lock_and_cleanup_extent_if_need() | 58.2 | 183.0 btrfs_buffered_write() | 2115.6 | 2973.3 The overall runtime of btrfs_buffered_write() is still pretty tiny (still less than 3 micro seconds), I'd say the extra cost is still acceptable. An alternative to fix this problem is to wait ordered extents during iomap_end() where the isize revert is done. But that solution will break nowait requirement, as if a nowait direct IO finished short, we have to wait for the OEs unconditionally or the next append buffered IO can still hit the same problem. So here we have to move the wait cost to buffered write, but at least the code is slightly more streamline.

Affected packages

Ecosystem Package Introduced Fixed