CVE-2025-38220

CVE Details

Release Date:2025-07-04
Impact:Moderate What is this?

Description


In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ext4: only dirty folios when data journaling regular files fstest generic/388 occasionally reproduces a crash that looks as follows: BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000 ... Call Trace: ext4_block_zero_page_range+0x30c/0x380 [ext4] ext4_truncate+0x436/0x440 [ext4] ext4_process_orphan+0x5d/0x110 [ext4] ext4_orphan_cleanup+0x124/0x4f0 [ext4] ext4_fill_super+0x262d/0x3110 [ext4] get_tree_bdev_flags+0x132/0x1d0 vfs_get_tree+0x26/0xd0 vfs_cmd_create+0x59/0xe0 __do_sys_fsconfig+0x4ed/0x6b0 do_syscall_64+0x82/0x170 ... This occurs when processing a symlink inode from the orphan list. The partial block zeroing code in the truncate path calls ext4_dirty_journalled_data() -> folio_mark_dirty(). The latter calls mapping->a_ops->dirty_folio(), but symlink inodes are not assigned an a_ops vector in ext4, hence the crash. To avoid this problem, update the ext4_dirty_journalled_data() helper to only mark the folio dirty on regular files (for which a_ops is assigned). This also matches the journaling logic in the ext4_symlink() creation path, where ext4_handle_dirty_metadata() is called directly.

See more information about CVE-2025-38220 from MITRE CVE dictionary and NIST NVD


NOTE: The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.


CVSS v3 metrics

Base Score: 7.0
Vector String: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Version: 3.1
Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: High
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality Impact: High
Integrity Impact: High
Availability Impact: High

Errata information


PlatformErrataRelease Date
Oracle Linux version 10 (kernel) ELSA-2025-150052025-09-04


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