# CVE-2021-46987: btrfs: fix deadlock when cloning inline extents and using qgroups

> A local attacker can cause a kernel deadlock in the btrfs filesystem by cloning inline extents while qgroups are enabled, leading to denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 28 Feb 2024
- **Updated:** 23 May 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2021-46987, GHSA-85xw-cv8g-9227, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2021-46987, UBUNTU-CVE-2021-46987

## What is CVE-2021-46987?

CVE-2021-46987 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 28 Feb 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

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

btrfs: fix deadlock when cloning inline extents and using qgroups

There are a few exceptional cases where cloning an inline extent needs to
copy the inline extent data into a page of the destination inode.

When this happens, we end up starting a transaction while having a dirty
page for the destination inode and while having the range locked in the
destination's inode iotree too. Because when reserving metadata space
for a transaction we may need to flush existing delalloc in case there is
not enough free space, we have a mechanism in place to prevent a deadlock,
which was introduced in commit 3d45f221ce627d ("btrfs: fix deadlock when
cloning inline extent and low on free metadata space").

However when using qgroups, a transaction also reserves metadata qgroup
space, which can also result in flushing delalloc in case there is not
enough available space at the moment. When this happens we deadlock, since
flushing delalloc requires locking the file range in the inode's iotree
and the range was already locked at the very beginning of the clone
operation, before attempting to start the transaction.

When this issue happens, stack traces like the following are reported:

  [72747.556262] task:kworker/u81:9   state:D stack:    0 pid:  225 ppid:     2 flags:0x00004000
  [72747.556268] Workqueue: writeback wb_workfn (flush-btrfs-1142)
  [72747.556271] Call Trace:
  [72747.556273]  __schedule+0x296/0x760
  [72747.556277]  schedule+0x3c/0xa0
  [72747.556279]  io_schedule+0x12/0x40
  [72747.556284]  __lock_page+0x13c/0x280
  [72747.556287]  ? generic_file_readonly_mmap+0x70/0x70
  [72747.556325]  extent_write_cache_pages+0x22a/0x440 [btrfs]
  [72747.556331]  ? __set_page_dirty_nobuffers+0xe7/0x160
  [72747.556358]  ? set_extent_buffer_dirty+0x5e/0x80 [btrfs]
  [72747.556362]  ? update_group_capacity+0x25/0x210
  [72747.556366]  ? cpumask_next_and+0x1a/0x20
  [72747.556391]  extent_writepages+0x44/0xa0 [btrfs]
  [72747.556394]  do_writepages+0x41/0xd0
  [72747.556398]  __writeback_single_inode+0x39/0x2a0
  [72747.556403]  writeback_sb_inodes+0x1ea/0x440
  [72747.556407]  __writeback_inodes_wb+0x5f/0xc0
  [72747.556410]  wb_writeback+0x235/0x2b0
  [72747.556414]  ? get_nr_inodes+0x35/0x50
  [72747.556417]  wb_workfn+0x354/0x490
  [72747.556420]  ? newidle_balance+0x2c5/0x3e0
  [72747.556424]  process_one_work+0x1aa/0x340
  [72747.556426]  worker_thread+0x30/0x390
  [72747.556429]  ? create_worker+0x1a0/0x1a0
  [72747.556432]  kthread+0x116/0x130
  [72747.556435]  ? kthread_park+0x80/0x80
  [72747.556438]  ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x30

  [72747.566958] Workqueue: btrfs-flush_delalloc btrfs_work_helper [btrfs]
  [72747.566961] Call Trace:
  [72747.566964]  __schedule+0x296/0x760
  [72747.566968]  ? finish_wait+0x80/0x80
  [72747.566970]  schedule+0x3c/0xa0
  [72747.566995]  wait_extent_bit.constprop.68+0x13b/0x1c0 [btrfs]
  [72747.566999]  ? finish_wait+0x80/0x80
  [72747.567024]  lock_extent_bits+0x37/0x90 [btrfs]
  [72747.567047]  btrfs_invalidatepage+0x299/0x2c0 [btrfs]
  [72747.567051]  ? find_get_pages_range_tag+0x2cd/0x380
  [72747.567076]  __extent_writepage+0x203/0x320 [btrfs]
  [72747.567102]  extent_write_cache_pages+0x2bb/0x440 [btrfs]
  [72747.567106]  ? update_load_avg+0x7e/0x5f0
  [72747.567109]  ? enqueue_entity+0xf4/0x6f0
  [72747.567134]  extent_writepages+0x44/0xa0 [btrfs]
  [72747.567137]  ? enqueue_task_fair+0x93/0x6f0
  [72747.567140]  do_writepages+0x41/0xd0
  [72747.567144]  __filemap_fdatawrite_range+0xc7/0x100
  [72747.567167]  btrfs_run_delalloc_work+0x17/0x40 [btrfs]
  [72747.567195]  btrfs_work_helper+0xc2/0x300 [btrfs]
  [72747.567200]  process_one_work+0x1aa/0x340
  [72747.567202]  worker_thread+0x30/0x390
  [72747.567205]  ? create_worker+0x1a0/0x1a0
  [72747.567208]  kthread+0x116/0x130
  [72747.567211]  ? kthread_park+0x80/0x80
  [72747.567214]  ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x30

  [72747.569686] task:fsstress        state:D stack:    
---truncated---

Weakness: CWE-667 (Improper Locking)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-46987?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2021-46987?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2021-46987 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-46987 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2021-46987 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2021-46987 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 28 Feb 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-46987 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-46987/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-46987/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-46987
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-46987
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2021-46987

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-46987/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.