# CVE-2024-42305: ext4: check dot and dotdot of dx_root before making dir indexed > A crafted ext4 filesystem image can cause a kernel page fault and crash during directory renaming due to missing dot/dotdot checks. - **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:** 17 Aug 2024 - **Updated:** 15 Oct 2026 - **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2024-42305, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-42305, GHSA-46jx-3cg2-9964, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-42305 ## What is CVE-2024-42305? CVE-2024-42305 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 17 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: ext4: check dot and dotdot of dx_root before making dir indexed Syzbot reports a issue as follows: ============================================ BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ffffed11022e24fe PGD 23ffee067 P4D 23ffee067 PUD 0 Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN PTI CPU: 0 PID: 5079 Comm: syz-executor306 Not tainted 6.10.0-rc5-g55027e689933 #0 Call Trace: make_indexed_dir+0xdaf/0x13c0 fs/ext4/namei.c:2341 ext4_add_entry+0x222a/0x25d0 fs/ext4/namei.c:2451 ext4_rename fs/ext4/namei.c:3936 [inline] ext4_rename2+0x26e5/0x4370 fs/ext4/namei.c:4214 [...] ============================================ The immediate cause of this problem is that there is only one valid dentry for the block to be split during do_split, so split==0 results in out of bounds accesses to the map triggering the issue. do_split unsigned split dx_make_map count = 1 split = count/2 = 0; continued = hash2 == map[split - 1].hash; ---> map[4294967295] The maximum length of a filename is 255 and the minimum block size is 1024, so it is always guaranteed that the number of entries is greater than or equal to 2 when do_split() is called. But syzbot's crafted image has no dot and dotdot in dir, and the dentry distribution in dirblock is as follows: bus dentry1 hole dentry2 free |xx--|xx-------------|...............|xx-------------|...............| 0 12 (8+248)=256 268 256 524 (8+256)=264 788 236 1024 So when renaming dentry1 increases its name_len length by 1, neither hole nor free is sufficient to hold the new dentry, and make_indexed_dir() is called. In make_indexed_dir() it is assumed that the first two entries of the dirblock must be dot and dotdot, so bus and dentry1 are left in dx_root because they are treated as dot and dotdot, and only dentry2 is moved to the new leaf block. That's why count is equal to 1. Therefore add the ext4_check_dx_root() helper function to add more sanity checks to dot and dotdot before starting the conversion to avoid the above issue. Weakness: CWE-125 (Out-of-bounds Read) ## Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-42305? It affects 1 product. Products: Linux kernel. ## How do I fix CVE-2024-42305? Apply the vendor's patch. ## Is CVE-2024-42305 being exploited? There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-42305 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-2024-42305 and fix it if it is affected. What it is: CVE-2024-42305 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 17 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-2024-42305 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-2024-42305/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-42305/index.md) ``` ## Sources - CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-42305 - NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-42305 - OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2024-42305 --- From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-42305/ Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.