High · published September 17, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
btrfs: zoned: don't clobber the extent buffer when zeroing it out
On a zoned filesystem a freed-but-still-dirty tree block is written out
as zeros (EXTENT_BUFFER_ZONED_ZEROOUT) only to keep the zone write
pointer advancing. btree_csum_one_bio() implemented this by memzeroing
the extent buffer's own folios before submission.
That destroys the in-memory buffer while it may still be referenced. In
particular btrfs_free_tree_block() can run on it afterwards and reads
the header to add a delayed reference; once the header has been zeroed
it frees bytenr 0 and corrupts the extent tree (the
btrfs_header_bytenr(buf) != 0 ASSERT in btrfs_free_tree_block(), or an
"unable to find ref" abort). It is flaky and reproduces under fsstress,
e.g. generic/461 and generic/013.
Write the zeros to disk from the shared zero page instead and leave the
extent buffer content untouched, so any later reference - including the
delayed reference from btrfs_free_tree_block() - still sees a valid
header. end_bbio_meta_write() now clears writeback on the buffer's own
folios, as the bio no longer carries them.