In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: make sure EXTENT_BUFFER_READING is cleared under refs_lock [FALSE ALERTS] There is a bug report that the warning inside invalidate_and_check_btree_folios() got …

Overview

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

btrfs: make sure EXTENT_BUFFER_READING is cleared under refs_lock

[FALSE ALERTS] There is a bug report that the warning inside invalidate_and_check_btree_folios() got triggered during btrfs/298:

BTRFS info (device sdd): first mount of filesystem f9bf732a-a19b-44b9-99a7-614ddff168e2 BTRFS info (device sdd): using crc32c checksum algorithm BTRFS error (device sdd): failed to find fsid cb2fdb42-b638-4f2f-badd-4127467ba674 when attempting to open seed devices BTRFS error (device sdd): failed to read chunk tree: -2 ------------[ cut here ]------------ WARNING: disk-io.c:3342 at invalidate_and_check_btree_folios+0x260/0x3c0 [btrfs], CPU#4: mount/125993 CPU: 4 UID: 0 PID: 125993 Comm: mount Tainted: G W OE 7.1.0-rc7-custom+ #1 PREEMPT(full) Hardware name: QEMU KVM Virtual Machine, BIOS edk2-20250812-19.fc42 08/12/2025 Call trace: invalidate_and_check_btree_folios+0x260/0x3c0 [btrfs] (P) open_ctree+0x1f50/0x23b0 [btrfs] btrfs_get_tree+0x89c/0xc48 [btrfs] vfs_get_tree+0x30/0x110 vfs_cmd_create+0x58/0xe8 __arm64_sys_fsconfig+0x39c/0x518 invoke_syscall.constprop.0+0x48/0x120 el0_svc_common.constprop.0+0x40/0xe8 do_el0_svc+0x24/0x38 el0_svc+0x50/0x310 el0t_64_sync_handler+0xa0/0xe8 el0t_64_sync+0x198/0x1a0 ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- BTRFS warning (device sdd): unable to release extent buffer 365985792 owner 3 gen 17 refs 3 flags 0x5

[CAUSE] In that invalidate_and_check_btree_folios() we wait for the eb to finish its read, then check if it's only held by us and the btree inode.

If not, then do a warning as it may be still held, and could cause problems.

But there is a small window where the check can lead to false alerts:

Thread A (Read endio)         |        Thread B (Unmount)

----------------------------------+------------------------------------- end_bbio_meta_read() | | The eb has one extra ref held | | by the reader, and has | | EXTENT_BUFFER_READING flag set | invalidate_and_check_btree_folios() | | | |- clear_extent_buffer_reading() | | | | |- wait_on_bit_io(); | | | The EXTENT_BUFFER_READING flag is | | | cleared | | |- if (refcount_read(eb->refs) > 2) | | The eb is held by the read, us | | and btree inode, thus it | | will trigger the warning |- free_extent_buffer() |

[FIX] Introduce a helper, free_extent_buffer_clear_reading().

If the new parameter, @clear_reading, is set, we will hold the spinlock at the beginning of free_extent_buffer_clear_reading() to make sure the EXTENT_BUFFER_READING flag is cleared inside the same critical section of decreasing refs.

Now free_extent_buffer() will just call free_extent_buffer_clear_reading() with @clear_reading set to false, so no behavior change.

But for end_bbio_meta_read(), it will not clear_extent_buffer_reading() directly, but pass @clear_reading as true.

Then inside invalidate_and_check_btree_folios(), hold the refs_lock before reading refs. So that we eliminate the race window completely.

Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.