CVE-2025-38276 fs/dax: Fix "don't skip locked entries when scanning entries"
A race condition in Linux kernel DAX filesystem handling causes skipped entries, leading to kernel warnings and potential 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-2025-38276?
CVE-2025-38276 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 10 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:
fs/dax: Fix "don't skip locked entries when scanning entries"
Commit 6be3e21d25ca ("fs/dax: don't skip locked entries when scanning entries") introduced a new function, wait_entry_unlocked_exclusive(), which waits for the current entry to become unlocked without advancing the XArray iterator state.
Waiting for the entry to become unlocked requires dropping the XArray lock. This requires calling xas_pause() prior to dropping the lock which leaves the xas in a suitable state for the next iteration. However this has the side-effect of advancing the xas state to the next index. Normally this isn't an issue because xas_for_each() contains code to detect this state and thus avoid advancing the index a second time on the next loop iteration.
However both callers of and wait_entry_unlocked_exclusive() itself subsequently use the xas state to reload the entry. As xas_pause() updated the state to the next index this will cause the current entry which is being waited on to be skipped. This caused the following warning to fire intermittently when running xftest generic/068 on an XFS filesystem with FS DAX enabled:
[ 35.067397] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [ 35.068229] WARNING: CPU: 21 PID: 1640 at mm/truncate.c:89 truncate_folio_batch_exceptionals+0xd8/0x1e0 [ 35.069717] Modules linked in: nd_pmem dax_pmem nd_btt nd_e820 libnvdimm [ 35.071006] CPU: 21 UID: 0 PID: 1640 Comm: fstest Not tainted 6.15.0-rc7+ #77 PREEMPT(voluntary) [ 35.072613] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS rel-1.16.3-0-ga6ed6b701f0a-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/204 [ 35.074845] RIP: 0010:truncate_folio_batch_exceptionals+0xd8/0x1e0 [ 35.075962] Code: a1 00 00 00 f6 47 0d 20 0f 84 97 00 00 00 4c 63 e8 41 39 c4 7f 0b eb 61 49 83 c5 01 45 39 ec 7e 58 42 f68 [ 35.079522] RSP: 0018:ffffb04e426c7850 EFLAGS: 00010202 [ 35.080359] RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ffff9d21e3481908 RCX: ffffb04e426c77f4 [ 35.081477] RDX: ffffb04e426c79e8 RSI: ffffb04e426c79e0 RDI: ffff9d21e34816e8 [ 35.082590] RBP: ffffb04e426c79e0 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: 0000000000000003 [ 35.083733] R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 822b53c0f7a49868 R12: 000000000000001f [ 35.084850] R13: 0000000000000000 R14: ffffb04e426c78e8 R15: fffffffffffffffe [ 35.085953] FS: 00007f9134c87740(0000) GS:ffff9d22abba0000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 35.087346] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 35.088244] CR2: 00007f9134c86000 CR3: 000000040afff000 CR4: 00000000000006f0 [ 35.089354] Call Trace: [ 35.089749] <TASK> [ 35.090168] truncate_inode_pages_range+0xfc/0x4d0 [ 35.091078] truncate_pagecache+0x47/0x60 [ 35.091735] xfs_setattr_size+0xc7/0x3e0 [ 35.092648] xfs_vn_setattr+0x1ea/0x270 [ 35.093437] notify_change+0x1f4/0x510 [ 35.094219] ? do_truncate+0x97/0xe0 [ 35.094879] do_truncate+0x97/0xe0 [ 35.095640] path_openat+0xabd/0xca0 [ 35.096278] do_filp_open+0xd7/0x190 [ 35.096860] do_sys_openat2+0x8a/0xe0 [ 35.097459] __x64_sys_openat+0x6d/0xa0 [ 35.098076] do_syscall_64+0xbb/0x1d0 [ 35.098647] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f [ 35.099444] RIP: 0033:0x7f9134d81fc1 [ 35.100033] Code: 75 57 89 f0 25 00 00 41 00 3d 00 00 41 00 74 49 80 3d 2a 26 0e 00 00 74 6d 89 da 48 89 ee bf 9c ff ff ff5 [ 35.102993] RSP: 002b:00007ffcd41e0d10 EFLAGS: 00000202 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000101 [ 35.104263] RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000000000000242 RCX: 00007f9134d81fc1 [ 35.105452] RDX: 0000000000000242 RSI: 00007ffcd41e1200 RDI: 00000000ffffff9c [ 35.106663] RBP: 00007ffcd41e1200 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000064 [ 35.107923] R10: 00000000000001a4 R11: 0000000000000202 R12: 0000000000000066 [ 35.109112] R13: 0000000000100000 R14: 0000000000100000 R15: 0000000000000400 [ 35.110357] </TASK> [ 35.110769] irq event stamp: 8415587 [ 35.111486] hardirqs last enabled at (8415599): [<ffffffff8d74b562>] __up_console_se ---truncated---
Weakness: CWE-667
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-38276?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2025-38276?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2025-38276 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-38276 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2025-38276, GHSA-rpxc-pcjp-7jp2, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-38276.