In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nilfs2: reject CLEAN_SEGMENTS ioctl with out-of-range segment numbers Syzbot reported a hung task in nilfs_transaction_begin() where multiple tasks performing chmod() …

Overview

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

nilfs2: reject CLEAN_SEGMENTS ioctl with out-of-range segment numbers

Syzbot reported a hung task in nilfs_transaction_begin() where multiple tasks performing chmod() on a nilfs2 mount blocked for over 143 seconds waiting to acquire ns_segctor_sem for read:

INFO: task syz.0.17:5918 blocked for more than 143 seconds. Call Trace: schedule+0x164/0x360 rwsem_down_read_slowpath+0x6d9/0x940 down_read+0x99/0x2e0 nilfs_transaction_begin+0x364/0x710 fs/nilfs2/segment.c:221 nilfs_setattr+0x124/0x2c0 fs/nilfs2/inode.c:921 notify_change+0xc1a/0xf40 chmod_common+0x273/0x4a0 do_fchmodat+0x12d/0x230

The writer holding ns_segctor_sem was a concurrent NILFS_IOCTL_CLEAN_SEGMENTS caller, stuck inside printk while emitting per-element warnings from nilfs_sufile_updatev():

__nilfs_msg+0x373/0x450 fs/nilfs2/super.c:78 nilfs_sufile_updatev+0x21c/0x6d0 fs/nilfs2/sufile.c:186 nilfs_sufile_freev fs/nilfs2/sufile.h:93 [inline] nilfs_free_segments fs/nilfs2/segment.c:1140 [inline] nilfs_segctor_collect_blocks fs/nilfs2/segment.c:1261 [inline] nilfs_segctor_do_construct+0x1f55/0x76c0 nilfs_clean_segments+0x3bd/0xa50 nilfs_ioctl_clean_segments fs/nilfs2/ioctl.c:922 [inline] nilfs_ioctl+0x261f/0x2780

The root cause is that user-supplied segment numbers are not validated before nilfs_clean_segments() begins doing work; the range check on each segnum is performed deep inside the call chain by nilfs_sufile_updatev(), which emits a nilfs_warn() per invalid entry while still holding the segctor lock and the sufile mi_sem. Under load (repeated invocations across multiple mounts saturating the global printk path), the cumulative printk latency keeps ns_segctor_sem held long enough to trip the hung_task watchdog, blocking concurrent operations such as chmod() that need ns_segctor_sem for read.

Fix by validating the contents of kbufs[4] in nilfs_clean_segments() immediately after acquiring ns_segctor_sem via nilfs_transaction_lock(). Holding ns_segctor_sem serializes the check against nilfs_ioctl_resize(), which can modify ns_nsegments, so the validation uses a consistent value. Out-of-range segment numbers are rejected with -EINVAL before any segment-cleaning work begins, so the bad entries never reach the per-element diagnostic path inside nilfs_sufile_updatev().

Affected

• linux_kernel >= 2.6.31, < 5.10.261
• linux_kernel >= 5.11, < 5.15.212
• linux_kernel >= 5.16, < 6.1.178
• linux_kernel >= 6.2, < 6.6.145
• linux_kernel >= 6.7, < 6.12.96
• linux_kernel >= 6.13, < 6.18.39
• linux_kernel >= 6.19, < 7.1.4

Remediation

Upgrade past the affected range:

• linux_kernel 7.1.4