CVE-2024-44963
kernel: btrfs: do not BUG_ON() when freeing tree block after error
Severity
ModerateRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 3.1
Review impact separately from score.
Published · September 4, 2024
Updated · November 21, 2025
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
btrfs: do not BUG_ON() when freeing tree block after error
When freeing a tree block, at btrfs_free_tree_block(), if we fail to create a delayed reference we don't deal with the error and just do a BUG_ON(). The error most likely to happen is -ENOMEM, and we have a comment mentioning that only -ENOMEM can happen, but that is not true, because in case qgroups are enabled any error returned from btrfs_qgroup_trace_extent_post() (can be -EUCLEAN or anything returned from btrfs_search_slot() for example) can be propagated back to btrfs_free_tree_block().
So stop doing a BUG_ON() and return the error to the callers and make them abort the transaction to prevent leaking space. Syzbot was triggering this, likely due to memory allocation failure injection.
CVSS score applicability
The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.
Mitigation
No mitigation is specified in collected source.
CVSS / CWE
CVSS 3.1 · 5.5CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE-754 · Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions