# CVE-2023-52897: btrfs: qgroup: do not warn on record without old_roots populated

> A local attacker can trigger a kernel warning and potential system instability in the Btrfs filesystem during qgroup rescans.

- **Severity:** Medium 4.7 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/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:** 21 Aug 2024
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2023-52897, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-52897, GHSA-758w-9j7r-h7p8, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-52897

## What is CVE-2023-52897?

CVE-2023-52897 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 21 Aug 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: qgroup: do not warn on record without old_roots populated

[BUG]
There are some reports from the mailing list that since v6.1 kernel, the
WARN_ON() inside btrfs_qgroup_account_extent() gets triggered during
rescan:

  WARNING: CPU: 3 PID: 6424 at fs/btrfs/qgroup.c:2756 btrfs_qgroup_account_extents+0x1ae/0x260 [btrfs]
  CPU: 3 PID: 6424 Comm: snapperd Tainted: P           OE      6.1.2-1-default #1 openSUSE Tumbleweed 05c7a1b1b61d5627475528f71f50444637b5aad7
  RIP: 0010:btrfs_qgroup_account_extents+0x1ae/0x260 [btrfs]
  Call Trace:
   <TASK>
  btrfs_commit_transaction+0x30c/0xb40 [btrfs c39c9c546c241c593f03bd6d5f39ea1b676250f6]
   ? start_transaction+0xc3/0x5b0 [btrfs c39c9c546c241c593f03bd6d5f39ea1b676250f6]
  btrfs_qgroup_rescan+0x42/0xc0 [btrfs c39c9c546c241c593f03bd6d5f39ea1b676250f6]
   btrfs_ioctl+0x1ab9/0x25c0 [btrfs c39c9c546c241c593f03bd6d5f39ea1b676250f6]
   ? __rseq_handle_notify_resume+0xa9/0x4a0
   ? mntput_no_expire+0x4a/0x240
   ? __seccomp_filter+0x319/0x4d0
   __x64_sys_ioctl+0x90/0xd0
   do_syscall_64+0x5b/0x80
   ? syscall_exit_to_user_mode+0x17/0x40
   ? do_syscall_64+0x67/0x80
  entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd
  RIP: 0033:0x7fd9b790d9bf
   </TASK>

[CAUSE]
Since commit e15e9f43c7ca ("btrfs: introduce
BTRFS_QGROUP_RUNTIME_FLAG_NO_ACCOUNTING to skip qgroup accounting"), if
our qgroup is already in inconsistent state, we will no longer do the
time-consuming backref walk.

This can leave some qgroup records without a valid old_roots ulist.
Normally this is fine, as btrfs_qgroup_account_extents() would also skip
those records if we have NO_ACCOUNTING flag set.

But there is a small window, if we have NO_ACCOUNTING flag set, and
inserted some qgroup_record without a old_roots ulist, but then the user
triggered a qgroup rescan.

During btrfs_qgroup_rescan(), we firstly clear NO_ACCOUNTING flag, then
commit current transaction.

And since we have a qgroup_record with old_roots = NULL, we trigger the
WARN_ON() during btrfs_qgroup_account_extents().

[FIX]
Unfortunately due to the introduction of NO_ACCOUNTING flag, the
assumption that every qgroup_record would have its old_roots populated
is no longer correct.

Fix the false alerts and drop the WARN_ON().

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-52897?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-52897?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2023-52897 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-52897 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-2023-52897 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-52897 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 21 Aug 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-2023-52897 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-2023-52897/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-52897/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-52897
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-52897
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-52897

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-52897/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.