Linux Kernel up to 6.12.59/6.17.9 xfs min out-of-bounds

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.59/6.17.9. It has been rated as critical. Affected by this issue is the function min of the component xfs. The manipulation leads to out-of-bounds. This vulnerability is listed as CVE-2025-40246. There is no available exploit. Upgrading the affected component is advised.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.59/6.17.9. It has been rated as problematic. This issue affects the function min of the component xfs. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a out-of-bounds vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-125. The product reads data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer. Impacted is confidentiality. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: xfs: fix out of bounds memory read error in symlink repair xfs/286 produced this report on my test fleet: ================================================================== BUG: KFENCE: out-of-bounds read in memcpy_orig+0x54/0x110 Out-of-bounds read at 0xffff88843fe9e038 (184B right of kfence-#184): memcpy_orig+0x54/0x110 xrep_symlink_salvage_inline+0xb3/0xf0 [xfs] xrep_symlink_salvage+0x100/0x110 [xfs] xrep_symlink+0x2e/0x80 [xfs] xrep_attempt+0x61/0x1f0 [xfs] xfs_scrub_metadata+0x34f/0x5c0 [xfs] xfs_ioc_scrubv_metadata+0x387/0x560 [xfs] xfs_file_ioctl+0xe23/0x10e0 [xfs] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x76/0xc0 do_syscall_64+0x4e/0x1e0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53 kfence-#184: 0xffff88843fe9df80-0xffff88843fe9dfea, size=107, cache=kmalloc-128 allocated by task 3470 on cpu 1 at 263329.131592s (192823.508886s ago): xfs_init_local_fork+0x79/0xe0 [xfs] xfs_iformat_local+0xa4/0x170 [xfs] xfs_iformat_data_fork+0x148/0x180 [xfs] xfs_inode_from_disk+0x2cd/0x480 [xfs] xfs_iget+0x450/0xd60 [xfs] xfs_bulkstat_one_int+0x6b/0x510 [xfs] xfs_bulkstat_iwalk+0x1e/0x30 [xfs] xfs_iwalk_ag_recs+0xdf/0x150 [xfs] xfs_iwalk_run_callbacks+0xb9/0x190 [xfs] xfs_iwalk_ag+0x1dc/0x2f0 [xfs] xfs_iwalk_args.constprop.0+0x6a/0x120 [xfs] xfs_iwalk+0xa4/0xd0 [xfs] xfs_bulkstat+0xfa/0x170 [xfs] xfs_ioc_fsbulkstat.isra.0+0x13a/0x230 [xfs] xfs_file_ioctl+0xbf2/0x10e0 [xfs] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x76/0xc0 do_syscall_64+0x4e/0x1e0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53 CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 1300113 Comm: xfs_scrub Not tainted 6.18.0-rc4-djwx #rc4 PREEMPT(lazy) 3d744dd94e92690f00a04398d2bd8631dcef1954 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.16.0-4.module+el8.8.0+21164+ed375313 04/01/2014 ================================================================== On further analysis, I realized that the second parameter to min() is not correct. xfs_ifork::if_bytes is the size of the xfs_ifork::if_data buffer. if_bytes can be smaller than the data fork size because: (a) the forkoff code tries to keep the data area as large as possible (b) for symbolic links, if_bytes is the ondisk file size + 1 (c) forkoff is always a multiple of 8. Case in point: for a single-byte symlink target, forkoff will be 8 but the buffer will only be 2 bytes long. In other words, the logic here is wrong and we walk off the end of the incore buffer. Fix that.

The advisory is shared at git.kernel.org. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2025-40246 since 04/16/2025. The exploitation is known to be difficult. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 277517 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2025-40246), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 6.12.60 or 6.17.10 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 7c2d68e091584149fe89bcbaf9b99b3162d46ee7/81a8685cac4bf081c93a7df591644f4f80240bb9/678e1cc2f482e0985a0613ab4a5bf89c497e5acc is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at git.kernel.org. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (277517) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-2747). Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Affected

• Debian Linux
• Google Cloud Platform
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• SUSE openSUSE
• Open Source Linux Kernel
• RESF Rocky Linux
• Microsoft Azure Linux

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.12.0
• 6.12.1
• 6.12.2
• 6.12.3
• 6.12.4
• 6.12.5
• 6.12.6
• 6.12.7
• 6.12.8
• 6.12.9
• 6.12.10
• 6.12.11
• 6.12.12
• 6.12.13
• 6.12.14
• 6.12.15
• 6.12.16
• 6.12.17
• 6.12.18
• 6.12.19
• 6.12.20
• 6.12.21
• 6.12.22
• 6.12.23
• 6.12.24
• 6.12.25
• 6.12.26
• 6.12.27
• 6.12.28
• 6.12.29
• 6.12.30
• 6.12.31
• 6.12.32
• 6.12.33
• 6.12.34
• 6.12.35
• 6.12.36
• 6.12.37
• 6.12.38
• 6.12.39
• 6.12.40
• 6.12.41
• 6.12.42
• 6.12.43
• 6.12.44
• 6.12.45
• 6.12.46
• 6.12.47
• 6.12.48
• 6.12.49
• 6.12.50
• 6.12.51
• 6.12.52
• 6.12.53
• 6.12.54
• 6.12.55
• 6.12.56
• 6.12.57
• 6.12.58
• 6.12.59
• 6.17.0
• 6.17.1
• 6.17.2
• 6.17.3
• 6.17.4
• 6.17.5
• 6.17.6
• 6.17.7
• 6.17.8
• 6.17.9

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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CVSSv4info

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Exploitinginfo

Threat Intelligenceinfo

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Entryinfo

Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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