published November 12, 2025
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ext4: fix potential null deref in ext4_mb_init()
In ext4_mb_init(), ext4_mb_avg_fragment_size_destroy() may be called
when sbi->s_mb_avg_fragment_size remains uninitialized (e.g., if groupinfo
slab cache allocation fails). Since ext4_mb_avg_fragment_size_destroy()
lacks null pointer checking, this leads to a null pointer dereference.
==================================================================
EXT4-fs: no memory for groupinfo slab cache
BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000
PGD 0 P4D 0
Oops: Oops: 0002 [#1] SMP PTI
CPU:2 UID: 0 PID: 87 Comm:mount Not tainted 6.17.0-rc2 #1134 PREEMPT(none)
RIP: 0010:_raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0x1b/0x40
Call Trace:
<TASK>
xa_destroy+0x61/0x130
ext4_mb_init+0x483/0x540
__ext4_fill_super+0x116d/0x17b0
ext4_fill_super+0xd3/0x280
get_tree_bdev_flags+0x132/0x1d0
vfs_get_tree+0x29/0xd0
do_new_mount+0x197/0x300
__x64_sys_mount+0x116/0x150
do_syscall_64+0x50/0x1c0
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e
==================================================================
Therefore, add necessary null check to ext4_mb_avg_fragment_size_destroy()
to prevent this issue. The same fix is also applied to
ext4_mb_largest_free_orders_destroy().