CVE-2024-44942 f2fs: fix to do sanity check on F2FS_INLINE_DATA flag in inode during GC

What is CVE-2024-44942?

CVE-2024-44942 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 26 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:

f2fs: fix to do sanity check on F2FS_INLINE_DATA flag in inode during GC

syzbot reports a f2fs bug as below:

------------[ cut here ]------------ kernel BUG at fs/f2fs/inline.c:258! CPU: 1 PID: 34 Comm: kworker/u8:2 Not tainted 6.9.0-rc6-syzkaller-00012-g9e4bc4bcae01 #0 RIP: 0010:f2fs_write_inline_data+0x781/0x790 fs/f2fs/inline.c:258 Call Trace: f2fs_write_single_data_page+0xb65/0x1d60 fs/f2fs/data.c:2834 f2fs_write_cache_pages fs/f2fs/data.c:3133 [inline] __f2fs_write_data_pages fs/f2fs/data.c:3288 [inline] f2fs_write_data_pages+0x1efe/0x3a90 fs/f2fs/data.c:3315 do_writepages+0x35b/0x870 mm/page-writeback.c:2612 __writeback_single_inode+0x165/0x10b0 fs/fs-writeback.c:1650 writeback_sb_inodes+0x905/0x1260 fs/fs-writeback.c:1941 wb_writeback+0x457/0xce0 fs/fs-writeback.c:2117 wb_do_writeback fs/fs-writeback.c:2264 [inline] wb_workfn+0x410/0x1090 fs/fs-writeback.c:2304 process_one_work kernel/workqueue.c:3254 [inline] process_scheduled_works+0xa12/0x17c0 kernel/workqueue.c:3335 worker_thread+0x86d/0xd70 kernel/workqueue.c:3416 kthread+0x2f2/0x390 kernel/kthread.c:388 ret_from_fork+0x4d/0x80 arch/x86/kernel/process.c:147 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:244

The root cause is: inline_data inode can be fuzzed, so that there may be valid blkaddr in its direct node, once f2fs triggers background GC to migrate the block, it will hit f2fs_bug_on() during dirty page writeback.

Let's add sanity check on F2FS_INLINE_DATA flag in inode during GC, so that, it can forbid migrating inline_data inode's data block for fixing.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-44942?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2024-44942?

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-2024-44942 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-44942 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as BELL-CVE-2024-44942, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-44942, GHSA-76mr-xp5q-rcx7, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2024-44942, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2024-44942, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-44942.