In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ufs: validate cylinder group metadata before caching it ufs_read_cylinder() copies the cylinder group index and the rotor positions straight from the on-disk group and…

Overview

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

ufs: validate cylinder group metadata before caching it

ufs_read_cylinder() copies the cylinder group index and the rotor positions straight from the on-disk group and caches them without any check:

ucpi->c_cgx    = fs32_to_cpu(sb, ucg->cg_cgx);
ucpi->c_rotor  = fs32_to_cpu(sb, ucg->cg_rotor);
ucpi->c_frotor = fs32_to_cpu(sb, ucg->cg_frotor);
ucpi->c_irotor = fs32_to_cpu(sb, ucg->cg_irotor);

They are then used as indices during allocation and free:

• c_cgx indexes the cylinder summary array as UFS_SB(sb)->fs_cs(ucpi->c_cgx), so a value past s_ncg writes a 32 bit count outside the s_csp allocation.

• c_frotor becomes a bitmap scan start, start = c_frotor >> 3, and then length = ((s_fpg + 7) >> 3) - start. A start beyond the block bitmap wraps the unsigned length to a huge value, so ubh_scanc() walks far past the cylinder group buffers. c_irotor drives the inode bitmap the same way.

A crafted image can set any of these freely, turning an ordinary allocation into an out of bounds access.

Reject a cylinder group whose recorded index does not match the group being read, or whose rotors fall outside the group, before the metadata is cached. Valid filesystems keep cg_cgx equal to the group number and the rotors within the group, so only malformed images are rejected.

Remediation

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

Vendor advisories

• Red Hat VEX · Moderate · affected: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 · no fix planned: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 · updated 2026-10-17 · vex