CVE-2026-45934 btrfs: fix EEXIST abort due to non-consecutive gaps in chunk allocation

Medium 5.5 Published 27 May 2026 Updated 21 Oct 2026

A bug in the Linux kernel's btrfs filesystem causes transaction aborts during chunk allocation, leading to system instability or 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-2026-45934?

CVE-2026-45934 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 27 May 2026. 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: fix EEXIST abort due to non-consecutive gaps in chunk allocation

I have been observing a number of systems aborting at insert_dev_extents() in btrfs_create_pending_block_groups(). The following is a sample stack trace of such an abort coming from forced chunk allocation (typically behind CONFIG_BTRFS_EXPERIMENTAL) but this can theoretically happen to any DUP chunk allocation.

[81.801] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [81.801] BTRFS: Transaction aborted (error -17) [81.801] WARNING: fs/btrfs/block-group.c:2876 at btrfs_create_pending_block_groups+0x721/0x770 [btrfs], CPU#1: bash/319 [81.802] Modules linked in: virtio_net btrfs xor zstd_compress raid6_pq null_blk [81.803] CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 319 Comm: bash Kdump: loaded Not tainted 6.19.0-rc6+ #319 NONE [81.803] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS Arch Linux 1.17.0-2-2 04/01/2014 [81.804] RIP: 0010:btrfs_create_pending_block_groups+0x723/0x770 [btrfs] [81.806] RSP: 0018:ffffa36241a6bce8 EFLAGS: 00010282 [81.806] RAX: 000000000000000d RBX: ffff8e699921e400 RCX: 0000000000000000 [81.807] RDX: 0000000002040001 RSI: 00000000ffffffef RDI: ffffffffc0608bf0 [81.807] RBP: 00000000ffffffef R08: ffff8e69830f6000 R09: 0000000000000007 [81.808] R10: ffff8e699921e5e8 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffff8e6999228000 [81.808] R13: ffff8e6984d82000 R14: ffff8e69966a69c0 R15: ffff8e69aa47b000 [81.809] FS: 00007fec6bdd9740(0000) GS:ffff8e6b1b379000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [81.809] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [81.810] CR2: 00005604833670f0 CR3: 0000000116679000 CR4: 00000000000006f0 [81.810] Call Trace: [81.810] <TASK> [81.810] __btrfs_end_transaction+0x3e/0x2b0 [btrfs] [81.811] btrfs_force_chunk_alloc_store+0xcd/0x140 [btrfs] [81.811] kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x15f/0x240 [81.812] vfs_write+0x264/0x500 [81.812] ksys_write+0x6c/0xe0 [81.812] do_syscall_64+0x66/0x770 [81.812] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e [81.813] RIP: 0033:0x7fec6be66197 [81.814] RSP: 002b:00007fffb159dd30 EFLAGS: 00000202 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000001 [81.815] RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00007fec6bdd9740 RCX: 00007fec6be66197 [81.815] RDX: 0000000000000002 RSI: 0000560483374f80 RDI: 0000000000000001 [81.816] RBP: 0000560483374f80 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000 [81.816] R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000202 R12: 0000000000000002 [81.817] R13: 00007fec6bfb85c0 R14: 00007fec6bfb5ee0 R15: 00005604833729c0 [81.817] </TASK> [81.817] irq event stamp: 20039 [81.818] hardirqs last enabled at (20047): [<ffffffff99a68302>] __up_console_sem+0x52/0x60 [81.818] hardirqs last disabled at (20056): [<ffffffff99a682e7>] __up_console_sem+0x37/0x60 [81.819] softirqs last enabled at (19470): [<ffffffff999d2b46>] __irq_exit_rcu+0x96/0xc0 [81.819] softirqs last disabled at (19463): [<ffffffff999d2b46>] __irq_exit_rcu+0x96/0xc0 [81.820] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- [81.820] BTRFS: error (device dm-7 state A) in btrfs_create_pending_block_groups:2876: errno=-17 Object already exists

Inspecting these aborts with drgn, I observed a pattern of overlapping chunk_maps. Note how stripe 1 of the first chunk overlaps in physical address with stripe 0 of the second chunk.

Physical Start Physical End Length Logical Type Stripe ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0x0000000102500000 0x0000000142500000 1.0G 0x0000000641d00000 META|DUP 0/2 0x0000000142500000 0x0000000182500000 1.0G 0x0000000641d00000 META|DUP 1/2 0x0000000142500000 0x0000000182500000 1.0G 0x0000000601d00000 META|DUP 0/2 0x0000000182500000 0x00000001c2500000 1.0G 0x0000000601d00000 META|DUP 1/2

Now how could this possibly happen? All chunk allocation is ---truncated---

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-45934?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2026-45934?

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-2026-45934 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-45934 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as AZL-88559, BELL-CVE-2026-45934, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-45934, GHSA-62rp-r79h-7q8x, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2026-45934, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2026-45934 and 4 more.