CVE-2022-49352 ext4: fix warning in ext4_handle_inode_extension

Medium 5.5 Published Updated

A local attacker can trigger a kernel warning and potential denial of service in the ext4 filesystem by manipulating inode sizes during write operations.

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

What is CVE-2022-49352?

CVE-2022-49352 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 26 Feb 2025. 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:

ext4: fix warning in ext4_handle_inode_extension

We got issue as follows: EXT4-fs error (device loop0) in ext4_reserve_inode_write:5741: Out of memory EXT4-fs error (device loop0): ext4_setattr:5462: inode #13: comm syz-executor.0: mark_inode_dirty error EXT4-fs error (device loop0) in ext4_setattr:5519: Out of memory EXT4-fs error (device loop0): ext4_ind_map_blocks:595: inode #13: comm syz-executor.0: Can't allocate blocks for non-extent mapped inodes with bigalloc ------------[ cut here ]------------ WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 4361 at fs/ext4/file.c:301 ext4_file_write_iter+0x11c9/0x1220 Modules linked in: CPU: 1 PID: 4361 Comm: syz-executor.0 Not tainted 5.10.0+ #1 RIP: 0010:ext4_file_write_iter+0x11c9/0x1220 RSP: 0018:ffff924d80b27c00 EFLAGS: 00010282 RAX: ffffffff815a3379 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 000000003b000000 RDX: ffff924d81601000 RSI: 00000000000009cc RDI: 00000000000009cd RBP: 000000000000000d R08: ffffffffbc5a2c6b R09: 0000902e0e52a96f R10: ffff902e2b7c1b40 R11: ffff902e2b7c1b40 R12: 000000000000000a R13: 0000000000000001 R14: ffff902e0e52aa10 R15: ffffffffffffff8b FS: 00007f81a7f65700(0000) GS:ffff902e3bc80000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: ffffffffff600400 CR3: 000000012db88001 CR4: 00000000003706e0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 Call Trace: do_iter_readv_writev+0x2e5/0x360 do_iter_write+0x112/0x4c0 do_pwritev+0x1e5/0x390 __x64_sys_pwritev2+0x7e/0xa0 do_syscall_64+0x37/0x50 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xa9

Above issue may happen as follows: Assume inode.i_size=4096 EXT4_I(inode)->i_disksize=4096

step 1: set inode->i_isize = 8192 ext4_setattr if (attr->ia_size != inode->i_size) EXT4_I(inode)->i_disksize = attr->ia_size; rc = ext4_mark_inode_dirty ext4_reserve_inode_write ext4_get_inode_loc __ext4_get_inode_loc sb_getblk --> return -ENOMEM ... if (!error) ->will not update i_size i_size_write(inode, attr->ia_size); Now: inode.i_size=4096 EXT4_I(inode)->i_disksize=8192

step 2: Direct write 4096 bytes ext4_file_write_iter ext4_dio_write_iter iomap_dio_rw ->return error if (extend) ext4_handle_inode_extension WARN_ON_ONCE(i_size_read(inode) < EXT4_I(inode)->i_disksize); ->Then trigger warning.

To solve above issue, if mark inode dirty failed in ext4_setattr just set 'EXT4_I(inode)->i_disksize' with old value.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49352?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2022-49352?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2022-49352 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49352 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49352, GHSA-qq62-42pv-vwvh, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49352.

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