CVE-2023-53149 (GCVE-0-2023-53149)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2025-09-15 14:03 – Updated: 2026-05-11 19:39
VLAI
Title
ext4: avoid deadlock in fs reclaim with page writeback
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ext4: avoid deadlock in fs reclaim with page writeback Ext4 has a filesystem wide lock protecting ext4_writepages() calls to avoid races with switching of journalled data flag or inode format. This lock can however cause a deadlock like: CPU0 CPU1 ext4_writepages() percpu_down_read(sbi->s_writepages_rwsem); ext4_change_inode_journal_flag() percpu_down_write(sbi->s_writepages_rwsem); - blocks, all readers block from now on ext4_do_writepages() ext4_init_io_end() kmem_cache_zalloc(io_end_cachep, GFP_KERNEL) fs_reclaim frees dentry... dentry_unlink_inode() iput() - last ref => iput_final() - inode dirty => write_inode_now()... ext4_writepages() tries to acquire sbi->s_writepages_rwsem and blocks forever Make sure we cannot recurse into filesystem reclaim from writeback code to avoid the deadlock.
Severity
No CVSS data available.
Assigner
References
Impacted products
Vendor Product Version
Linux Linux Affected: c8585c6fcaf2011de54c3592e80a634a2b9e1a7f , < 2ec97dc90df40c50e509809dc9a198638a7e18b6 (git)
Affected: c8585c6fcaf2011de54c3592e80a634a2b9e1a7f , < 4b4340bf04ce9a52061f15000ecedd126abc093c (git)
Affected: c8585c6fcaf2011de54c3592e80a634a2b9e1a7f , < 00d873c17e29cc32d90ca852b82685f1673acaa5 (git)
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Linux Linux Affected: 4.7
Unaffected: 0 , < 4.7 (semver)
Unaffected: 6.2.16 , ≤ 6.2.* (semver)
Unaffected: 6.3.3 , ≤ 6.3.* (semver)
Unaffected: 6.4 , ≤ * (original_commit_for_fix)
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{
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            "fs/ext4/ext4.h",
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          "value": "In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\next4: avoid deadlock in fs reclaim with page writeback\n\nExt4 has a filesystem wide lock protecting ext4_writepages() calls to\navoid races with switching of journalled data flag or inode format. This\nlock can however cause a deadlock like:\n\nCPU0                            CPU1\n\next4_writepages()\n  percpu_down_read(sbi-\u003es_writepages_rwsem);\n                                ext4_change_inode_journal_flag()\n                                  percpu_down_write(sbi-\u003es_writepages_rwsem);\n                                    - blocks, all readers block from now on\n  ext4_do_writepages()\n    ext4_init_io_end()\n      kmem_cache_zalloc(io_end_cachep, GFP_KERNEL)\n        fs_reclaim frees dentry...\n          dentry_unlink_inode()\n            iput() - last ref =\u003e\n              iput_final() - inode dirty =\u003e\n                write_inode_now()...\n                  ext4_writepages() tries to acquire sbi-\u003es_writepages_rwsem\n                    and blocks forever\n\nMake sure we cannot recurse into filesystem reclaim from writeback code\nto avoid the deadlock."
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}


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Forecast uses a logistic model when the trend is rising, or an exponential decay model when the trend is falling. Fitted via linearized least squares.

Sightings

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Nomenclature

  • Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
  • Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
  • Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
  • Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
  • Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.



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