CVE-2025-38221 ext4: fix out of bounds punch offset
A local attacker can trigger a kernel crash in the ext4 filesystem by performing specific file operations, causing a denial of service.
- 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
What is CVE-2025-38221?
CVE-2025-38221 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 4 Jul 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:
ext4: fix out of bounds punch offset
Punching a hole with a start offset that exceeds max_end is not permitted and will result in a negative length in the truncate_inode_partial_folio() function while truncating the page cache, potentially leading to undesirable consequences.
A simple reproducer:
truncate -s 9895604649994 /mnt/foo xfs_io -c "pwrite 8796093022208 4096" /mnt/foo xfs_io -c "fpunch 8796093022213 25769803777" /mnt/foo
kernel BUG at include/linux/highmem.h:275! Oops: invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] SMP PTI CPU: 3 UID: 0 PID: 710 Comm: xfs_io Not tainted 6.15.0-rc3 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.16.3-2.fc40 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:zero_user_segments.constprop.0+0xd7/0x110 RSP: 0018:ffffc90001cf3b38 EFLAGS: 00010287 RAX: 0000000000000005 RBX: ffffea0001485e40 RCX: 0000000000001000 RDX: 000000000040b000 RSI: 0000000000000005 RDI: 000000000040b000 RBP: 000000000040affb R08: ffff888000000000 R09: ffffea0000000000 R10: 0000000000000003 R11: 00000000fffc7fc5 R12: 0000000000000005 R13: 000000000040affb R14: ffffea0001485e40 R15: ffff888031cd3000 FS: 00007f4f63d0b780(0000) GS:ffff8880d337d000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 000000001ae0b038 CR3: 00000000536aa000 CR4: 00000000000006f0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 Call Trace: <TASK> truncate_inode_partial_folio+0x3dd/0x620 truncate_inode_pages_range+0x226/0x720 ? bdev_getblk+0x52/0x3e0 ? ext4_get_group_desc+0x78/0x150 ? crc32c_arch+0xfd/0x180 ? __ext4_get_inode_loc+0x18c/0x840 ? ext4_inode_csum+0x117/0x160 ? jbd2_journal_dirty_metadata+0x61/0x390 ? __ext4_handle_dirty_metadata+0xa0/0x2b0 ? kmem_cache_free+0x90/0x5a0 ? jbd2_journal_stop+0x1d5/0x550 ? __ext4_journal_stop+0x49/0x100 truncate_pagecache_range+0x50/0x80 ext4_truncate_page_cache_block_range+0x57/0x3a0 ext4_punch_hole+0x1fe/0x670 ext4_fallocate+0x792/0x17d0 ? __count_memcg_events+0x175/0x2a0 vfs_fallocate+0x121/0x560 ksys_fallocate+0x51/0xc0 __x64_sys_fallocate+0x24/0x40 x64_sys_call+0x18d2/0x4170 do_syscall_64+0xa7/0x220 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e
Fix this by filtering out cases where the punching start offset exceeds max_end.
Weakness: CWE-125
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38221?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2025-38221?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.
Is CVE-2025-38221 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38221 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-38221, GHSA-m2xx-pr2p-6vvw, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38221.