# CVE-2025-21658: btrfs: avoid NULL pointer dereference if no valid extent tree

> A local attacker can cause a kernel crash via NULL pointer dereference in btrfs scrub when using a corrupted filesystem with rescue mount options.

- **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:** 21 Jan 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-55907, AZL-55913, BELL-CVE-2025-21658, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-21658, GHSA-phh3-rpf3-3q9p, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-21658, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2025-21658, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-21658

## What is CVE-2025-21658?

CVE-2025-21658 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 21 Jan 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: avoid NULL pointer dereference if no valid extent tree

[BUG]
Syzbot reported a crash with the following call trace:

  BTRFS info (device loop0): scrub: started on devid 1
  BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000208
  #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode
  #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page
  PGD 106e70067 P4D 106e70067 PUD 107143067 PMD 0
  Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI
  CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 689 Comm: repro Kdump: loaded Tainted: G           O       6.13.0-rc4-custom+ #206
  Tainted: [O]=OOT_MODULE
  Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS unknown 02/02/2022
  RIP: 0010:find_first_extent_item+0x26/0x1f0 [btrfs]
  Call Trace:
   <TASK>
   scrub_find_fill_first_stripe+0x13d/0x3b0 [btrfs]
   scrub_simple_mirror+0x175/0x260 [btrfs]
   scrub_stripe+0x5d4/0x6c0 [btrfs]
   scrub_chunk+0xbb/0x170 [btrfs]
   scrub_enumerate_chunks+0x2f4/0x5f0 [btrfs]
   btrfs_scrub_dev+0x240/0x600 [btrfs]
   btrfs_ioctl+0x1dc8/0x2fa0 [btrfs]
   ? do_sys_openat2+0xa5/0xf0
   __x64_sys_ioctl+0x97/0xc0
   do_syscall_64+0x4f/0x120
   entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e
   </TASK>

[CAUSE]
The reproducer is using a corrupted image where extent tree root is
corrupted, thus forcing to use "rescue=all,ro" mount option to mount the
image.

Then it triggered a scrub, but since scrub relies on extent tree to find
where the data/metadata extents are, scrub_find_fill_first_stripe()
relies on an non-empty extent root.

But unfortunately scrub_find_fill_first_stripe() doesn't really expect
an NULL pointer for extent root, it use extent_root to grab fs_info and
triggered a NULL pointer dereference.

[FIX]
Add an extra check for a valid extent root at the beginning of
scrub_find_fill_first_stripe().

The new error path is introduced by 42437a6386ff ("btrfs: introduce
mount option rescue=ignorebadroots"), but that's pretty old, and later
commit b979547513ff ("btrfs: scrub: introduce helper to find and fill
sector info for a scrub_stripe") changed how we do scrub.

So for kernels older than 6.6, the fix will need manual backport.

Weakness: CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-21658?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2025-21658?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-21658 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-21658 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-2025-21658 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-21658 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 21 Jan 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-2025-21658 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-2025-21658/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-21658/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-21658
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-21658
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-21658

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-21658/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.