Linux Kernel up to 6.18.20/6.19.10 writeback wait_sb_inodes denial of service

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.18.20/6.19.10. It has been rated as critical. This affects the function wait_sb_inodes of the component writeback. The manipulation leads to denial of service. This vulnerability is listed as CVE-2026-31465. There is no available exploit. Upgrading the affected component is advised.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.18.20/6.19.10. It has been rated as critical. This issue affects the function wait_sb_inodes of the component writeback. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a denial of service vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-404. The product does not release or incorrectly releases a resource before it is made available for re-use. Impacted is availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: writeback: don't block sync for filesystems with no data integrity guarantees Add a SB_I_NO_DATA_INTEGRITY superblock flag for filesystems that cannot guarantee data persistence on sync (eg fuse). For superblocks with this flag set, sync kicks off writeback of dirty inodes but does not wait for the flusher threads to complete the writeback. This replaces the per-inode AS_NO_DATA_INTEGRITY mapping flag added in commit f9a49aa302a0 ("fs/writeback: skip AS_NO_DATA_INTEGRITY mappings in wait_sb_inodes()"). The flag belongs at the superblock level because data integrity is a filesystem-wide property, not a per-inode one. Having this flag at the superblock level also allows us to skip having to iterate every dirty inode in wait_sb_inodes() only to skip each inode individually. Prior to this commit, mappings with no data integrity guarantees skipped waiting on writeback completion but still waited on the flusher threads to finish initiating the writeback. Waiting on the flusher threads is unnecessary. This commit kicks off writeback but does not wait on the flusher threads. This change properly addresses a recent report [1] for a suspend-to-RAM hang seen on fuse-overlayfs that was caused by waiting on the flusher threads to finish: Workqueue: pm_fs_sync pm_fs_sync_work_fn Call Trace: __schedule+0x457/0x1720 schedule+0x27/0xd0 wb_wait_for_completion+0x97/0xe0 sync_inodes_sb+0xf8/0x2e0 __iterate_supers+0xdc/0x160 ksys_sync+0x43/0xb0 pm_fs_sync_work_fn+0x17/0xa0 process_one_work+0x193/0x350 worker_thread+0x1a1/0x310 kthread+0xfc/0x240 ret_from_fork+0x243/0x280 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 On fuse this is problematic because there are paths that may cause the flusher thread to block (eg if systemd freezes the user session cgroups first, which freezes the fuse daemon, before invoking the kernel suspend. The kernel suspend triggers ->write_node() which on fuse issues a synchronous setattr request, which cannot be processed since the daemon is frozen. Or if the daemon is buggy and cannot properly complete writeback, initiating writeback on a dirty folio already under writeback leads to writeback_get_folio() -> folio_prepare_writeback() -> unconditional wait on writeback to finish, which will cause a hang). This commit restores fuse to its prior behavior before tmp folios were removed, where sync was essentially a no-op. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-fsdevel/CAJnrk1a-asuvfrbKXbEwwDSctvemF+6zfhdnuzO65Pt8HsFSRw@mail.gmail.com/T/#m632c4648e9cafc4239299887109ebd880ac6c5c1

It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-31465 since 03/09/2026. The exploitation is known to be difficult. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 310605 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-31465), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 6.18.21 or 6.19.11 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 83800f8ef358ea2fc9b1ae4986b83f2bc24be927/5c24a13d8a0466ca0446e58309e51f2606520164/76f9377cd2ab7a9220c25d33940d9ca20d368172 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 (310605) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2026-1252). Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

Affected

• Google Container-Optimized OS
• Debian Linux
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• SUSE openSUSE
• RESF Rocky Linux
• Open Source Linux Kernel
• Siemens SIMATIC S7
• Proxmox Virtual Environment

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.18.0
• 6.18.1
• 6.18.2
• 6.18.3
• 6.18.4
• 6.18.5
• 6.18.6
• 6.18.7
• 6.18.8
• 6.18.9
• 6.18.10
• 6.18.11
• 6.18.12
• 6.18.13
• 6.18.14
• 6.18.15
• 6.18.16
• 6.18.17
• 6.18.18
• 6.18.19
• 6.18.20
• 6.19.0
• 6.19.1
• 6.19.2
• 6.19.3
• 6.19.4
• 6.19.5
• 6.19.6
• 6.19.7
• 6.19.8
• 6.19.9
• 6.19.10

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

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Entryinfo

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