Linux Kernel up to 7.2.5 ext4 ext4_xattr_inode_cache_find deadlock

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, was found in Linux Kernel up to 7.2.5. Affected is the function ext4_xattr_inode_cache_find of the component ext4. The manipulation results in deadlock. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2026-92503. Attacking locally is a requirement. No exploit is available. You should upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, was found in Linux Kernel up to 7.2.5. Affected is the function ext4_xattr_inode_cache_find of the component ext4. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a deadlock vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-833. The product contains multiple threads or executable segments that are waiting for each other to release a necessary lock, resulting in deadlock. This is going to have an impact on availability. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ext4: fix ABBA deadlock in ext4_xattr_inode_cache_find() Syzbot/stress-ng reported an ABBA deadlock in ext4 when exercising concurrent xattr workloads (using the ea_inode mount/format option). The deadlock occurs between the running transaction and the eviction thread: - Task 1 (stress-ng): Holds a reference to a shared mbcache_entry (ce) and calls ext4_xattr_inode_cache_find() -> ext4_iget() to retrieve the corresponding EA inode. Since the EA inode is currently being evicted, ext4_iget() blocks in __wait_on_freeing_inode() waiting for eviction to complete. - Task 2 (eviction thread): Currently evicting the same EA inode in ext4_evict_ea_inode(). It calls mb_cache_entry_wait_unused(oe) which blocks waiting for Task 1 to release the reference to the mbcache_entry. To break this deadlock, implement a new ext4_iget() configuration flag named EXT4_IGET_NOWAIT. When set, perform a non-blocking lookup of the inode via VFS's find_inode_nowait() API. If the inode is currently being evicted (marked with I_FREEING or I_WILL_FREE) or created (I_CREATING), or if it is not present in the VFS inode cache (cache miss), simply skip it (returning -ENOENT) rather than waiting for eviction/creation to complete, breaking the ABBA cycle. Since we return -ENOENT immediately on a cache miss, we never attempt to allocate a new inode or call iget_locked(), completely eliminating any TOCTOU race window. If the returned inode is I_NEW, wait for its initialization to clear via wait_on_new_inode(). If initialization fails and the inode is unhashed during wait_on_new_inode() waking up (e.g., due to an I/O read error in another thread), safely drop the reference and return -ENOENT. This unhashed check is executed unconditionally on all cache-hit pathways to properly handle concurrent initialization failures. Finally, standard validation checks (including is_bad_inode, EXT4_EA_INODE_FL, file_acl, and xattr flags) are executed as normal inside check_igot_inode() to fully guarantee VFS-layer safety. In ext4_xattr_inode_cache_find(), invoke ext4_iget() with the new EXT4_IGET_NOWAIT flag to perform the non-blocking cache search.

The advisory is available at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2026-92503 since 09/16/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. Local access is required to approach this attack. Technical details are known, but there is no available exploit.

Upgrading to version 7.2.6 or 7.3-rc1 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 7720fddd1fe344d14be258a2028f74ebf1569511/03438084a7b8621fb5c762dd3d04cff5f2630fb2 is able to eliminate this problem. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

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Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 7.2.0
• 7.2.1
• 7.2.2
• 7.2.3
• 7.2.4
• 7.2.5

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

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