CVE-2023-53618

MEDIUM

Linux Kernel 5.2.19-5.3 - Denial of Service via Invalid Reloc Tree Root Key

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: reject invalid reloc tree root keys with stack dump [BUG] Syzbot reported a crash that an ASSERT() got triggered inside prepare_to_merge(). That ASSERT() makes sure the reloc tree is properly pointed back by its subvolume tree. [CAUSE] After more debugging output, it turns out we had an invalid reloc tree: BTRFS error (device loop1): reloc tree mismatch, root 8 has no reloc root, expect reloc root key (-8, 132, 8) gen 17 Note the above root key is (TREE_RELOC_OBJECTID, ROOT_ITEM, QUOTA_TREE_OBJECTID), meaning it's a reloc tree for quota tree. But reloc trees can only exist for subvolumes, as for non-subvolume trees, we just COW the involved tree block, no need to create a reloc tree since those tree blocks won't be shared with other trees. Only subvolumes tree can share tree blocks with other trees (thus they have BTRFS_ROOT_SHAREABLE flag). Thus this new debug output proves my previous assumption that corrupted on-disk data can trigger that ASSERT(). [FIX] Besides the dedicated fix and the graceful exit, also let tree-checker to check such root keys, to make sure reloc trees can only exist for subvolumes.

Scores

CVSS v3 5.5
EPSS 0.0019
EPSS Percentile 8.5%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Details

Status published
Products (19)
linux/Kernel 5.16.0 - 6.1.46linux
linux/Kernel 5.4.0 - 5.15.127linux
linux/Kernel 6.2.0 - 6.4.11linux
Linux/Linux < 5.4
Linux/Linux 259ee7754b6793af8bdd77f9ca818bc41cfe9541 - 314135b7bae9618a317874ae195272682cf2d5d4
Linux/Linux 259ee7754b6793af8bdd77f9ca818bc41cfe9541 - 3ae93b316ca4b8b3c33798ef1d210355f2fb9318
Linux/Linux 259ee7754b6793af8bdd77f9ca818bc41cfe9541 - 6ebcd021c92b8e4b904552e4d87283032100796d
Linux/Linux 259ee7754b6793af8bdd77f9ca818bc41cfe9541 - 84256e00eeca73c529fc6196e478cc89b8098157
Linux/Linux 3d95c52d789ca99e344061d7f6dadb2519adbcf5
Linux/Linux 5.15.127 - 5.15.*
... and 9 more
Published Oct 07, 2025
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026