Upstream information
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:btrfs: do not strictly require dirty metadata threshold for metadata writepages
[BUG]
There is an internal report that over 1000 processes are
waiting at the io_schedule_timeout() of balance_dirty_pages(), causing
a system hang and trigger a kernel coredump.
The kernel is v6.4 kernel based, but the root problem still applies to
any upstream kernel before v6.18.
[CAUSE]
From Jan Kara for his wisdom on the dirty page balance behavior first.
This cgroup dirty limit was what was actually playing the role here
because the cgroup had only a small amount of memory and so the dirty
limit for it was something like 16MB.
Dirty throttling is responsible for enforcing that nobody can dirty
(significantly) more dirty memory than there's dirty limit. Thus when
a task is dirtying pages it periodically enters into balance_dirty_pages()
and we let it sleep there to slow down the dirtying.
When the system is over dirty limit already (either globally or within
a cgroup of the running task), we will not let the task exit from
balance_dirty_pages() until the number of dirty pages drops below the
limit.
So in this particular case, as I already mentioned, there was a cgroup
with relatively small amount of memory and as a result with dirty limit
set at 16MB. A task from that cgroup has dirtied about 28MB worth of
pages in btrfs btree inode and these were practically the only dirty
pages in that cgroup.
So that means the only way to reduce the dirty pages of that cgroup is
to writeback the dirty pages of btrfs btree inode, and only after that
those processes can exit balance_dirty_pages().
Now back to the btrfs part, btree_writepages() is responsible for
writing back dirty btree inode pages.
The problem here is, there is a btrfs internal threshold that if the
btree inode's dirty bytes are below the 32M threshold, it will not
do any writeback.
This behavior is to batch as much metadata as possible so we won't write
back those tree blocks and then later re-COW them again for another
modification.
This internal 32MiB is higher than the existing dirty page size (28MiB),
meaning no writeback will happen, causing a deadlock between btrfs and
cgroup:
- Btrfs doesn't want to write back btree inode until more dirty pages
- Cgroup/MM doesn't want more dirty pages for btrfs btree inode
Thus any process touching that btree inode is put into sleep until
the number of dirty pages is reduced.
Thanks Jan Kara a lot for the analysis of the root cause.
[ENHANCEMENT]
Since kernel commit b55102826d7d ("btrfs: set AS_KERNEL_FILE on the
btree_inode"), btrfs btree inode pages will only be charged to the root
cgroup which should have a much larger limit than btrfs' 32MiB
threshold.
So it should not affect newer kernels.
But for all current LTS kernels, they are all affected by this problem,
and backporting the whole AS_KERNEL_FILE may not be a good idea.
Even for newer kernels I still think it's a good idea to get
rid of the internal threshold at btree_writepages(), since for most cases
cgroup/MM has a better view of full system memory usage than btrfs' fixed
threshold.
For internal callers using btrfs_btree_balance_dirty() since that
function is already doing internal threshold check, we don't need to
bother them.
But for external callers of btree_writepages(), just respect their
requests and write back whatever they want, ignoring the internal
btrfs threshold to avoid such deadlock on btree inode dirty page
balancing.
SUSE information
Overall state of this security issue: New
This issue is currently rated as having not set severity.
Note from the SUSE Security Team on the kernel-default package
SUSE will no longer fix all CVEs in the Linux Kernel anymore, but declare some bug classes as won't fix. Please refer to TID 21496 for more details. No SUSE Bugzilla entries cross referenced. No SUSE Security Announcements cross referenced.Status of this issue by product and package
Please note that this evaluation state might be work in progress, incomplete or outdated. Also information for service packs in the LTSS phase is only included for issues meeting the LTSS criteria. If in doubt, feel free to contact us for clarification. The updates are grouped by state of their lifecycle. SUSE product lifecycles are documented on the lifecycle page.
| Product(s) | Source package | State |
|---|---|---|
| Products under general support and receiving all security fixes. | ||
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP7 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP7 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP7 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP7 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP7 | kernel-source-azure | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP7 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP7 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.2 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.2 | kernel-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.2 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.2 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.3 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.3 | kernel-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.3 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.3 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.4 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.4 | kernel-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.4 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.4 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.5 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.5 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.5 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Legacy 15 SP7 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Legacy 15 SP7 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 | kernel-source-azure | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP7 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP7 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP7 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP7 | kernel-source-azure | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.0 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.0 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.0 | kernel-source-azure | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP7 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP7 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP7 | kernel-source-azure | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 16.0 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 16.0 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 16.0 | kernel-source-azure | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension 15 SP7 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension 15 SP7 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Micro 6.0 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Micro 6.0 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Micro 6.0 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Micro 6.1 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Micro 6.1 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Micro 6.1 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Micro 6.2 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Real Time Module 15 SP7 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| openSUSE Leap 15.6 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| openSUSE Leap 15.6 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| openSUSE Leap 15.6 | kernel-source-azure | Analysis |
| openSUSE Leap 15.6 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| Products under Long Term Service Pack support and receiving important and critical security fixes. | ||
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching 12 SP5 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching 12 SP5 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP4 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP4 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP5 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP5 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP4 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP5 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP6 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP4 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP5 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP4 LTSS EXTREME CORE | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP4 LTSS EXTREME CORE | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP5 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP5-LTSS | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP5-LTSS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP5-LTSS Extended Security | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP5-LTSS Extended Security | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server LTSS Extended Security 12 SP5 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | kernel-source-azure | Analysis |
| SUSE Manager Proxy 4.3 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Manager Proxy LTS 4.3 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Manager Retail Branch Server 4.3 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Manager Retail Branch Server LTS 4.3 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Manager Server 4.3 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Manager Server LTS 4.3 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| Products past their end of life and not receiving proactive updates anymore. | ||
| SUSE CaaS Platform 4.0 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Enterprise Storage 6 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Enterprise Storage 7 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Enterprise Storage 7.1 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 SP4 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP2 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP4 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP1 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP2 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP3 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP4 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP5 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP6 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP1 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP1-ESPOS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP1-LTSS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP2 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP2-ESPOS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP2-LTSS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3-ESPOS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP6 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP6 | kernel-source-azure | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.0 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.1 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.1 | kernel-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.1 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP1 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP2 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Basesystem 15 SP3 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP1 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP2 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP3 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Public Cloud 15 SP6 | kernel-source-azure | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Sale 12 SP2-CLIENT | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP2 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP3 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP3 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP4 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP4 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP5 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP6 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP4 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP4-LTSS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2-BCL | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2-ESPOS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2-LTSS | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2-LTSS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP4 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP4-ESPOS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP4-LTSS | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP4-LTSS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP1 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP1-BCL | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP1-LTSS | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP1-LTSS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2-BCL | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2-LTSS | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2-LTSS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3-BCL | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3-LTSS | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3-LTSS | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6 | kernel-source-azure | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for Raspberry Pi 12 SP2 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 12 SP2 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 12 SP4 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP1 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP2 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP3 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP4 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP4 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 | kernel-default | Analysis |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Manager Proxy 4.0 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Manager Proxy 4.1 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Manager Proxy 4.2 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Manager Retail Branch Server 4.0 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Manager Retail Branch Server 4.1 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Manager Retail Branch Server 4.2 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Manager Server 4.0 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Manager Server 4.1 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Manager Server 4.2 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE OpenStack Cloud 7 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE OpenStack Cloud 9 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE OpenStack Cloud Crowbar 9 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| SUSE Real Time Module 15 SP3 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Real Time Module 15 SP4 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Real Time Module 15 SP5 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| SUSE Real Time Module 15 SP6 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| openSUSE Leap 15.3 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| openSUSE Leap 15.3 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| openSUSE Leap 15.4 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| openSUSE Leap 15.4 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
| openSUSE Leap 15.5 | kernel-source | Analysis |
| openSUSE Leap 15.5 | kernel-source-rt | Analysis |
SUSE Timeline for this CVE
CVE page created: Sat Feb 14 18:02:55 2026CVE page last modified: Sun Feb 15 01:36:58 2026