CVE-2023-54224

btrfs: fix lockdep splat and potential deadlock after failure running delayed items

published December 30, 2025

CVSS
—
EPSS
0%
Percentile
9.4
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

btrfs: fix lockdep splat and potential deadlock after failure running delayed items

When running delayed items we are holding a delayed node's mutex and then

we will attempt to modify a subvolume btree to insert/update/delete the

delayed items. However if have an error during the insertions for example,

btrfs_insert_delayed_items() may return with a path that has locked extent

buffers (a leaf at the very least), and then we attempt to release the

delayed node at __btrfs_run_delayed_items(), which requires taking the

delayed node's mutex, causing an ABBA type of deadlock. This was reported

by syzbot and the lockdep splat is the following:

WARNING: possible circular locking dependency detected

6.5.0-rc7-syzkaller-00024-g93f5de5f648d #0 Not tainted

------------------------------------------------------

syz-executor.2/13257 is trying to acquire lock:

ffff88801835c0c0 (&delayed_node->mutex){+.+.}-{3:3}, at: __btrfs_release_delayed_node+0x9a/0xaa0 fs/btrfs/delayed-inode.c:256

but task is already holding lock:

ffff88802a5ab8e8 (btrfs-tree-00){++++}-{3:3}, at: __btrfs_tree_lock+0x3c/0x2a0 fs/btrfs/locking.c:198

which lock already depends on the new lock.

the existing dependency chain (in reverse order) is:

-> #1 (btrfs-tree-00){++++}-{3:3}:

__lock_release kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5475 [inline]

lock_release+0x36f/0x9d0 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5781

up_write+0x79/0x580 kernel/locking/rwsem.c:1625

btrfs_tree_unlock_rw fs/btrfs/locking.h:189 [inline]

btrfs_unlock_up_safe+0x179/0x3b0 fs/btrfs/locking.c:239

search_leaf fs/btrfs/ctree.c:1986 [inline]

btrfs_search_slot+0x2511/0x2f80 fs/btrfs/ctree.c:2230

btrfs_insert_empty_items+0x9c/0x180 fs/btrfs/ctree.c:4376

btrfs_insert_delayed_item fs/btrfs/delayed-inode.c:746 [inline]

btrfs_insert_delayed_items fs/btrfs/delayed-inode.c:824 [inline]

__btrfs_commit_inode_delayed_items+0xd24/0x2410 fs/btrfs/delayed-inode.c:1111

__btrfs_run_delayed_items+0x1db/0x430 fs/btrfs/delayed-inode.c:1153

flush_space+0x269/0xe70 fs/btrfs/space-info.c:723

btrfs_async_reclaim_metadata_space+0x106/0x350 fs/btrfs/space-info.c:1078

process_one_work+0x92c/0x12c0 kernel/workqueue.c:2600

worker_thread+0xa63/0x1210 kernel/workqueue.c:2751

kthread+0x2b8/0x350 kernel/kthread.c:389

ret_from_fork+0x2e/0x60 arch/x86/kernel/process.c:145

ret_from_fork_asm+0x11/0x20 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:304

-> #0 (&delayed_node->mutex){+.+.}-{3:3}:

check_prev_add kernel/locking/lockdep.c:3142 [inline]

check_prevs_add kernel/locking/lockdep.c:3261 [inline]

validate_chain kernel/locking/lockdep.c:3876 [inline]

__lock_acquire+0x39ff/0x7f70 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5144

lock_acquire+0x1e3/0x520 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5761

__mutex_lock_common+0x1d8/0x2530 kernel/locking/mutex.c:603

__mutex_lock kernel/locking/mutex.c:747 [inline]

mutex_lock_nested+0x1b/0x20 kernel/locking/mutex.c:799

__btrfs_release_delayed_node+0x9a/0xaa0 fs/btrfs/delayed-inode.c:256

btrfs_release_delayed_node fs/btrfs/delayed-inode.c:281 [inline]

__btrfs_run_delayed_items+0x2b5/0x430 fs/btrfs/delayed-inode.c:1156

btrfs_commit_transaction+0x859/0x2ff0 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:2276

btrfs_sync_file+0xf56/0x1330 fs/btrfs/file.c:1988

vfs_fsync_range fs/sync.c:188 [inline]

vfs_fsync fs/sync.c:202 [inline]

do_fsync fs/sync.c:212 [inline]

__do_sys_fsync fs/sync.c:220 [inline]

__se_sys_fsync fs/sync.c:218 [inline]

__x64_sys_fsync+0x196/0x1e0 fs/sync.c:218

do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline]

do_syscall_64+0x41/0xc0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80

entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd

other info that

---truncated---

The record
Technical detail
CVSS
Not scored
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00200 · 9.4th percentile
Published
2025-12-30T12:11Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 30 DEC 12:11Z
    btrfs: fix lockdep splat and potential deadlock after failure running delayed items
    cvelistv5