CVE-2026-98269 btrfs: abort transaction on failure to update inode for hole punching and reflinking
A local attacker can cause persistent filesystem inconsistency and potential denial of service by triggering a failure during btrfs hole punching or reflinking operations.
- 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-2026-98269?
CVE-2026-98269 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 6 Oct 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: abort transaction on failure to update inode for hole punching and reflinking
If we fail to update the inode we error out without aborting the transaction, which can result in a persistent inconsistency if after the failure the transaction is committed, as we have dropped file extent items from a range and either punched a hole or insert a new file extent item for that range (for reflinks).
So add the missing transaction abort.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-98269?
How do I fix CVE-2026-98269?
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-2026-98269 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98269 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-106461, BELL-CVE-2026-98269, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98269, GHSA-2964-m6r5-r6cr, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98269.