# CVE-2022-49999: btrfs: fix space cache corruption and potential double allocations

> A race condition in the Btrfs filesystem can cause space cache corruption and double allocations, leading to system crashes or data integrity issues.

- **Severity:** High 7.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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:** 18 Jun 2025
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49999, GHSA-j8xg-f23q-2vmv, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49999

## What is CVE-2022-49999?

CVE-2022-49999 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 18 Jun 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:

btrfs: fix space cache corruption and potential double allocations

When testing space_cache v2 on a large set of machines, we encountered a
few symptoms:

1. "unable to add free space :-17" (EEXIST) errors.
2. Missing free space info items, sometimes caught with a "missing free
   space info for X" error.
3. Double-accounted space: ranges that were allocated in the extent tree
   and also marked as free in the free space tree, ranges that were
   marked as allocated twice in the extent tree, or ranges that were
   marked as free twice in the free space tree. If the latter made it
   onto disk, the next reboot would hit the BUG_ON() in
   add_new_free_space().
4. On some hosts with no on-disk corruption or error messages, the
   in-memory space cache (dumped with drgn) disagreed with the free
   space tree.

All of these symptoms have the same underlying cause: a race between
caching the free space for a block group and returning free space to the
in-memory space cache for pinned extents causes us to double-add a free
range to the space cache. This race exists when free space is cached
from the free space tree (space_cache=v2) or the extent tree
(nospace_cache, or space_cache=v1 if the cache needs to be regenerated).
struct btrfs_block_group::last_byte_to_unpin and struct
btrfs_block_group::progress are supposed to protect against this race,
but commit d0c2f4fa555e ("btrfs: make concurrent fsyncs wait less when
waiting for a transaction commit") subtly broke this by allowing
multiple transactions to be unpinning extents at the same time.

Specifically, the race is as follows:

1. An extent is deleted from an uncached block group in transaction A.
2. btrfs_commit_transaction() is called for transaction A.
3. btrfs_run_delayed_refs() -> __btrfs_free_extent() runs the delayed
   ref for the deleted extent.
4. __btrfs_free_extent() -> do_free_extent_accounting() ->
   add_to_free_space_tree() adds the deleted extent back to the free
   space tree.
5. do_free_extent_accounting() -> btrfs_update_block_group() ->
   btrfs_cache_block_group() queues up the block group to get cached.
   block_group->progress is set to block_group->start.
6. btrfs_commit_transaction() for transaction A calls
   switch_commit_roots(). It sets block_group->last_byte_to_unpin to
   block_group->progress, which is block_group->start because the block
   group hasn't been cached yet.
7. The caching thread gets to our block group. Since the commit roots
   were already switched, load_free_space_tree() sees the deleted extent
   as free and adds it to the space cache. It finishes caching and sets
   block_group->progress to U64_MAX.
8. btrfs_commit_transaction() advances transaction A to
   TRANS_STATE_SUPER_COMMITTED.
9. fsync calls btrfs_commit_transaction() for transaction B. Since
   transaction A is already in TRANS_STATE_SUPER_COMMITTED and the
   commit is for fsync, it advances.
10. btrfs_commit_transaction() for transaction B calls
    switch_commit_roots(). This time, the block group has already been
    cached, so it sets block_group->last_byte_to_unpin to U64_MAX.
11. btrfs_commit_transaction() for transaction A calls
    btrfs_finish_extent_commit(), which calls unpin_extent_range() for
    the deleted extent. It sees last_byte_to_unpin set to U64_MAX (by
    transaction B!), so it adds the deleted extent to the space cache
    again!

This explains all of our symptoms above:

* If the sequence of events is exactly as described above, when the free
  space is re-added in step 11, it will fail with EEXIST.
* If another thread reallocates the deleted extent in between steps 7
  and 11, then step 11 will silently re-add that space to the space
  cache as free even though it is actually allocated. Then, if that
  space is allocated *again*, the free space tree will be corrupted
  (namely, the wrong item will be deleted).
* If we don't catch this free space tree corr
---truncated---

Weakness: CWE-787 (Out-of-bounds Write)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49999?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2022-49999?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2022-49999 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49999 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-2022-49999 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2022-49999 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 18 Jun 2025. 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-2022-49999 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-2022-49999/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-49999/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-49999
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-49999
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-49999

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-49999/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.