Message-ID: <CANypQFYN5YtfD7gMbOhe8Rt1+rfpCn2htSr_Sa+pesspWixhPQ@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2026 18:13:44 +0800
From: Jiaming Zhang <r772577952@...il.com>
To: cem@...nel.org, linux-xfs@...r.kernel.org
Cc: djwong@...nel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, pchelkin@...ras.ru, 
	syzkaller@...glegroups.com
Subject: [Linux Kernel Bugs] general protection fault in xchk_btree and
 another slab-use-after-free issue

Dear Linux kernel developers and maintainers,

We are writing to report a general protection fault discovered in the
xfs subsystem with our generated syzkaller specifications. This issue
is reproducible on the latest version of linux (v6.19-rc6, commit
24d479d26b25bce5faea3ddd9fa8f3a6c3129ea7). The KASAN report from
kernel is listed below (formatted by syz-symbolize):

---

loop0: detected capacity change from 0 to 32768
XFS (loop0): Mounting V5 Filesystem 9f91832a-3b79-45c3-9d6d-ed0bc7357fe4
XFS (loop0): Ending clean mount
XFS (loop0): Injecting error at file fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_btree.c, line
309, on filesystem "loop0"
Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address
0xdffffc0000000009: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN NOPTI
KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000048-0x000000000000004f]
CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 9920 Comm: repro.out Not tainted 6.19.0-rc6 #24 PREEMPT(full)
Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.15.0-1 04/01/2014
RIP: 0010:xchk_btree+0xb9/0x1380 fs/xfs/scrub/btree.c:701
Code: f2 00 66 43 c7 44 35 0d f3 f3 43 c6 44 35 0f f3 e8 1c 44 39 fe
48 89 5c 24 40 48 83 c3 48 48 89 d8 48 c1 e8 03 48 89 44 24 30 <42> 0f
b6 04 30 84 c0 0f 85 d6 11 00 00 44 0f b6 33 41 ff ce bf 53
RSP: 0018:ffffc9000854f360 EFLAGS: 00010206
RAX: 0000000000000009 RBX: 0000000000000048 RCX: ffff888020bebd80
RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: ffff888044710e00
RBP: ffffc9000854f510 R08: ffffc9000854f540 R09: 0000000000000002
R10: 0000000000000006 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffffffff837c5b20
R13: 1ffff920010a9e88 R14: dffffc0000000000 R15: ffffffff8ba6c880
FS:  000000001d1543c0(0000) GS:ffff8880ec5e0000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
CR2: 0000200000002700 CR3: 00000000229e4000 CR4: 0000000000752ef0
PKRU: 55555554
Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 xchk_allocbt+0x112/0x190 fs/xfs/scrub/alloc.c:173
 xrep_revalidate_allocbt+0xf3/0x160 fs/xfs/scrub/alloc_repair.c:930
 xfs_scrub_metadata+0xc08/0x1920 fs/xfs/scrub/scrub.c:-1
 xfs_ioc_scrubv_metadata+0x74a/0xaf0 fs/xfs/scrub/scrub.c:981
 xfs_file_ioctl+0x751/0x1560 fs/xfs/xfs_ioctl.c:1266
 vfs_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:51 [inline]
 __do_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:597 [inline]
 __se_sys_ioctl+0xfc/0x170 fs/ioctl.c:583
 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:63 [inline]
 do_syscall_64+0xe8/0xf80 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:94
 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f
RIP: 0033:0x45a879
Code: 28 00 00 00 75 05 48 83 c4 28 c3 e8 31 18 00 00 90 48 89 f8 48
89 f7 48 89 d6 48 89 ca 4d 89 c2 4d 89 c8 4c 8b 4c 24 08 0f 05 <48> 3d
01 f0 ff ff 73 01 c3 48 c7 c1 c0 ff ff ff f7 d8 64 89 01 48
RSP: 002b:00007ffda72db7f8 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000010
RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00000000004004b8 RCX: 000000000045a879
RDX: 00002000000000c0 RSI: 00000000c0285840 RDI: 0000000000000005
RBP: 00007ffda72db860 R08: 0000000000000004 R09: 0000000000000005
R10: 0000000000000004 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 000000000040b990
R13: 0000000000000000 R14: 00000000004ca018 R15: 00000000004004b8
 </TASK>
Modules linked in:
---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---
RIP: 0010:xchk_btree+0xb9/0x1380 fs/xfs/scrub/btree.c:701
Code: f2 00 66 43 c7 44 35 0d f3 f3 43 c6 44 35 0f f3 e8 1c 44 39 fe
48 89 5c 24 40 48 83 c3 48 48 89 d8 48 c1 e8 03 48 89 44 24 30 <42> 0f
b6 04 30 84 c0 0f 85 d6 11 00 00 44 0f b6 33 41 ff ce bf 53
RSP: 0018:ffffc9000854f360 EFLAGS: 00010206
RAX: 0000000000000009 RBX: 0000000000000048 RCX: ffff888020bebd80
RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: ffff888044710e00
RBP: ffffc9000854f510 R08: ffffc9000854f540 R09: 0000000000000002
R10: 0000000000000006 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffffffff837c5b20
R13: 1ffff920010a9e88 R14: dffffc0000000000 R15: ffffffff8ba6c880
FS:  000000001d1543c0(0000) GS:ffff8880ec5e0000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
CR2: 00007fbbbc0430c8 CR3: 00000000229e4000 CR4: 0000000000752ef0
PKRU: 55555554
----------------
Code disassembly (best guess):
   0: f2 00 66 43          repnz add %ah,0x43(%rsi)
   4: c7 44 35 0d f3 f3 43 movl   $0xc643f3f3,0xd(%rbp,%rsi,1)
   b: c6
   c: 44 35 0f f3 e8 1c    rex.R xor $0x1ce8f30f,%eax
  12: 44 39 fe              cmp    %r15d,%esi
  15: 48 89 5c 24 40        mov    %rbx,0x40(%rsp)
  1a: 48 83 c3 48          add    $0x48,%rbx
  1e: 48 89 d8              mov    %rbx,%rax
  21: 48 c1 e8 03          shr    $0x3,%rax
  25: 48 89 44 24 30        mov    %rax,0x30(%rsp)
* 2a: 42 0f b6 04 30        movzbl (%rax,%r14,1),%eax <-- trapping instruction
  2f: 84 c0                test   %al,%al
  31: 0f 85 d6 11 00 00    jne    0x120d
  37: 44 0f b6 33          movzbl (%rbx),%r14d
  3b: 41 ff ce              dec    %r14d
  3e: bf                    .byte 0xbf
  3f: 53                    push   %rbx

---

The root cause of this issue is that in xchk_btree(), where the
argument cur can be NULL but the function assume cur is not NULL,
leading to a NULL pointer dereference when accessing member
(https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/v6.19-rc6/fs/xfs/scrub/btree.c#L701).

We can add a NULL check at the beginning of xchk_btree() to fix this issue:
```
--- a/fs/xfs/scrub/btree.c
+++ b/fs/xfs/scrub/btree.c
@@ -693,6 +693,9 @@ xchk_btree(
  int level;
  int error = 0;

+ if (!cur)
+ return -EINVAL;
+
  /*
  * Allocate the btree scrub context from the heap, because this
  * structure can get rather large.  Don't let a caller feed us a
```

After applying changes above and re-running reproducer, another issues
is triggered:

---
TITLE: KASAN: slab-use-after-free Read in xchk_btree_check_block_owner

XFS (loop6): Mounting V5 Filesystem 9f91832a-3b79-45c3-9d6d-ed0bc7357fe4
XFS (loop6): Ending clean mount
==================================================================
BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in
xchk_btree_check_block_owner+0x3a2/0x600 fs/xfs/scrub/btree.c:401
Read of size 8 at addr ffff88806af035d8 by task syz.6.59/14096

CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 14096 Comm: syz.6.59 Not tainted 6.19.0-rc6-dirty
#30 PREEMPT(full)
Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.15.0-1 04/01/2014
Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 __dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:94 [inline]
 dump_stack_lvl+0x10e/0x190 lib/dump_stack.c:120
 print_address_description mm/kasan/report.c:378 [inline]
 print_report+0x17e/0x810 mm/kasan/report.c:482
 kasan_report+0x147/0x180 mm/kasan/report.c:595
 xchk_btree_check_block_owner+0x3a2/0x600 fs/xfs/scrub/btree.c:401
 xchk_btree+0x57e/0x1320 fs/xfs/scrub/btree.c:797
 xchk_allocbt+0x112/0x190 fs/xfs/scrub/alloc.c:173
 xrep_revalidate_allocbt+0x69/0x160 fs/xfs/scrub/alloc_repair.c:925
 xfs_scrub_metadata+0xc08/0x1920 fs/xfs/scrub/scrub.c:-1
 xfs_ioc_scrubv_metadata+0x74a/0xaf0 fs/xfs/scrub/scrub.c:981
 xfs_file_ioctl+0x751/0x1560 fs/xfs/xfs_ioctl.c:1266
 vfs_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:51 [inline]
 __do_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:597 [inline]
 __se_sys_ioctl+0xfc/0x170 fs/ioctl.c:583
 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:63 [inline]
 do_syscall_64+0xe8/0xf80 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:94
 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f
RIP: 0033:0x7f71bddb459d
Code: 02 b8 ff ff ff ff c3 66 0f 1f 44 00 00 f3 0f 1e fa 48 89 f8 48
89 f7 48 89 d6 48 89 ca 4d 89 c2 4d 89 c8 4c 8b 4c 24 08 0f 05 <48> 3d
01 f0 ff ff 73 01 c3 48 c7 c1 a8 ff ff ff f7 d8 64 89 01 48
RSP: 002b:00007f71bed71f98 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000010
RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00007f71be045fa0 RCX: 00007f71bddb459d
RDX: 00002000000000c0 RSI: 00000000c0285840 RDI: 0000000000000005
RBP: 00007f71bde52610 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000
R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 0000000000000000
R13: 00007f71be046038 R14: 00007f71be045fa0 R15: 00007f71bed52000
 </TASK>

Allocated by task 14096:
 kasan_save_stack mm/kasan/common.c:57 [inline]
 kasan_save_track+0x3e/0x80 mm/kasan/common.c:78
 unpoison_slab_object mm/kasan/common.c:340 [inline]
 __kasan_slab_alloc+0x6c/0x80 mm/kasan/common.c:366
 kasan_slab_alloc include/linux/kasan.h:253 [inline]
 slab_post_alloc_hook mm/slub.c:4953 [inline]
 slab_alloc_node mm/slub.c:5263 [inline]
 kmem_cache_alloc_noprof+0x37d/0x710 mm/slub.c:5270
 xfs_btree_alloc_cursor fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_btree.h:683 [inline]
 xfs_bnobt_init_cursor+0x64/0x210 fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_alloc_btree.c:485
 xchk_ag_btcur_init+0xe0/0x5d0 fs/xfs/scrub/common.c:612
 xchk_ag_init fs/xfs/scrub/common.c:698 [inline]
 xchk_setup_ag_btree+0x295/0x310 fs/xfs/scrub/common.c:943
 xchk_setup_ag_allocbt+0x70/0x190 fs/xfs/scrub/alloc.c:35
 xfs_scrub_metadata+0xa9e/0x1920 fs/xfs/scrub/scrub.c:709
 xfs_ioc_scrubv_metadata+0x74a/0xaf0 fs/xfs/scrub/scrub.c:981
 xfs_file_ioctl+0x751/0x1560 fs/xfs/xfs_ioctl.c:1266
 vfs_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:51 [inline]
 __do_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:597 [inline]
 __se_sys_ioctl+0xfc/0x170 fs/ioctl.c:583
 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:63 [inline]
 do_syscall_64+0xe8/0xf80 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:94
 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f

Freed by task 14096:
 kasan_save_stack mm/kasan/common.c:57 [inline]
 kasan_save_track+0x3e/0x80 mm/kasan/common.c:78
 kasan_save_free_info+0x46/0x50 mm/kasan/generic.c:584
 poison_slab_object mm/kasan/common.c:253 [inline]
 __kasan_slab_free+0x58/0x80 mm/kasan/common.c:285
 kasan_slab_free include/linux/kasan.h:235 [inline]
 slab_free_hook mm/slub.c:2540 [inline]
 slab_free mm/slub.c:6670 [inline]
 kmem_cache_free+0x197/0x620 mm/slub.c:6781
 xchk_should_check_xref+0xf9/0x420 fs/xfs/scrub/common.c:1351
 xchk_xref_is_used_space+0x14b/0x210 fs/xfs/scrub/alloc.c:190
 xchk_btree_check_block_owner+0x2fe/0x600 fs/xfs/scrub/btree.c:395
 xchk_btree+0x57e/0x1320 fs/xfs/scrub/btree.c:797
 xchk_allocbt+0x112/0x190 fs/xfs/scrub/alloc.c:173
 xrep_revalidate_allocbt+0x69/0x160 fs/xfs/scrub/alloc_repair.c:925
 xfs_scrub_metadata+0xc08/0x1920 fs/xfs/scrub/scrub.c:-1
 xfs_ioc_scrubv_metadata+0x74a/0xaf0 fs/xfs/scrub/scrub.c:981
 xfs_file_ioctl+0x751/0x1560 fs/xfs/xfs_ioctl.c:1266
 vfs_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:51 [inline]
 __do_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:597 [inline]
 __se_sys_ioctl+0xfc/0x170 fs/ioctl.c:583
 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:63 [inline]
 do_syscall_64+0xe8/0xf80 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:94
 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f

The buggy address belongs to the object at ffff88806af035c8
 which belongs to the cache xfs_bnobt_cur of size 232
The buggy address is located 16 bytes inside of
 freed 232-byte region [ffff88806af035c8, ffff88806af036b0)

The buggy address belongs to the physical page:
page: refcount:0 mapcount:0 mapping:0000000000000000 index:0x0 pfn:0x6af03
ksm flags: 0x4fff00000000000(node=1|zone=1|lastcpupid=0x7ff)
page_type: f5(slab)
raw: 04fff00000000000 ffff88801dd96a00 ffffea000094fdc0 0000000000000003
raw: 0000000000000000 00000000800d000d 00000000f5000000 0000000000000000
page dumped because: kasan: bad access detected
page_owner tracks the page as allocated
page last allocated via order 0, migratetype Unmovable, gfp_mask
0x1052c40(GFP_NOFS|__GFP_NOWARN|__GFP_NORETRY|__GFP_COMP|__GFP_NOLOCKDEP),
pid 13126, tgid 13119 (syz.4.29), ts 58027826746, free_ts 57929202822
 set_page_owner include/linux/page_owner.h:32 [inline]
 post_alloc_hook+0x234/0x290 mm/page_alloc.c:1884
 prep_new_page mm/page_alloc.c:1892 [inline]
 get_page_from_freelist+0x24e4/0x2580 mm/page_alloc.c:3945
 __alloc_frozen_pages_noprof+0x181/0x370 mm/page_alloc.c:5240
 alloc_pages_mpol+0x232/0x4a0 mm/mempolicy.c:2486
 alloc_slab_page mm/slub.c:3075 [inline]
 allocate_slab+0x86/0x3b0 mm/slub.c:3248
 new_slab mm/slub.c:3302 [inline]
 ___slab_alloc+0xe70/0x1860 mm/slub.c:4656
 __slab_alloc+0x65/0x100 mm/slub.c:4779
 __slab_alloc_node mm/slub.c:4855 [inline]
 slab_alloc_node mm/slub.c:5251 [inline]
 kmem_cache_alloc_noprof+0x40f/0x710 mm/slub.c:5270
 xfs_btree_alloc_cursor fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_btree.h:683 [inline]
 xfs_cntbt_init_cursor+0x64/0x210 fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_alloc_btree.c:511
 xfs_free_ag_extent+0x570/0x1890 fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_alloc.c:2149
 __xfs_free_extent+0x2a7/0x460 fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_alloc.c:4047
 xfs_extent_free_finish_item+0x299/0x840 fs/xfs/xfs_extfree_item.c:555
 xfs_defer_finish_one+0x5a6/0xcc0 fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_defer.c:595
 xfs_defer_finish_noroll+0x94a/0x1300 fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_defer.c:707
 xfs_defer_finish+0x1e/0x270 fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_defer.c:741
 xrep_defer_finish+0x16e/0x240 fs/xfs/scrub/repair.c:242
page last free pid 785 tgid 785 stack trace:
 reset_page_owner include/linux/page_owner.h:25 [inline]
 free_pages_prepare mm/page_alloc.c:1433 [inline]
 __free_frozen_pages+0xbc4/0xd40 mm/page_alloc.c:2973
 vfree+0x25a/0x400 mm/vmalloc.c:3466
 delayed_vfree_work+0x55/0x80 mm/vmalloc.c:3385
 process_one_work kernel/workqueue.c:3257 [inline]
 process_scheduled_works+0xa45/0x1670 kernel/workqueue.c:3340
 worker_thread+0x8a0/0xda0 kernel/workqueue.c:3421
 kthread+0x711/0x8a0 kernel/kthread.c:463
 ret_from_fork+0x510/0xa50 arch/x86/kernel/process.c:158
 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:246

Memory state around the buggy address:
 ffff88806af03480: fc fc fc fc fa fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb
 ffff88806af03500: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb
>ffff88806af03580: fb fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fa fb fb fb fb fb fb
                                                    ^
 ffff88806af03600: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb
 ffff88806af03680: fb fb fb fb fb fb fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fa fb
==================================================================
---

I also analyzed the root cause of this issue. In
xchk_btree_check_block_owner(), bs->cur is an alias for
bs->sc->sa.bnocur (or rmap_cur,
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/v6.19-rc6/fs/xfs/scrub/btree.c#L396-L400).
The issue occurs when error injection triggers a failure path:

1. xchk_btree_check_block_owner() calls xchk_xref_is_used_space()
2. In xchk_xref_is_used_space(), xfs_alloc_has_records() returns a
non-zero error due to error injection
3. Non-zero error causes xchk_should_check_xref() to free curpp (which
points to bs->sc->sa.bnocur).
4. Memory pointed to by bs->cur is freed.

Control returns to xchk_btree_check_block_owner(), which subsequently
accesses bs->cur->bc_ops, triggering the UAF.

P.S. this issue can also be triggered independently by syzkaller using
our generated specs.

To fix this issue, we can cache values of
xfs_btree_is_bno(bs->cur->bc_ops) and
xfs_btree_is_rmap(bs->cur->bc_ops) at the beginning of the function:
```
--- a/fs/xfs/scrub/btree.c
+++ b/fs/xfs/scrub/btree.c
@@ -371,6 +371,8 @@ xchk_btree_check_block_owner(
  xfs_agnumber_t agno;
  xfs_agblock_t agbno;
  bool init_sa;
+ bool is_bno;
+ bool is_rmap;
  int error = 0;

  if (!bs->cur)
@@ -379,6 +381,9 @@ xchk_btree_check_block_owner(
  agno = xfs_daddr_to_agno(bs->cur->bc_mp, daddr);
  agbno = xfs_daddr_to_agbno(bs->cur->bc_mp, daddr);

+ is_bno = xfs_btree_is_bno(bs->cur->bc_ops);
+ is_rmap = xfs_btree_is_rmap(bs->cur->bc_ops);
+
  /*
  * If the btree being examined is not itself a per-AG btree, initialize
  * sc->sa so that we can check for the presence of an ownership record
@@ -398,11 +403,11 @@ xchk_btree_check_block_owner(
  * have to nullify it (to shut down further block owner checks) if
  * self-xref encounters problems.
  */
- if (!bs->sc->sa.bno_cur && xfs_btree_is_bno(bs->cur->bc_ops))
+ if (!bs->sc->sa.bno_cur && is_bno)
  bs->cur = NULL;

  xchk_xref_is_only_owned_by(bs->sc, agbno, 1, bs->oinfo);
- if (!bs->sc->sa.rmap_cur && xfs_btree_is_rmap(bs->cur->bc_ops))
+ if (!bs->sc->sa.rmap_cur && is_rmap)
  bs->cur = NULL;

 out_free:
```

After applying above changes, reproducer ran for ~35 minutes without
triggering any issues.

If above solutions are acceptable, we are happy to submit patches :)

The kernel console output, kernel config, syzkaller reproducer, and C
reproducer are also attached to help with analysis.

Please let me know if any further information is required.

Best Regards,
Jiaming Zhang

View attachment "repro.c" of type "text/plain" (208643 bytes)

Download attachment "kernel.log" of type "application/octet-stream" (227549 bytes)

Download attachment "report" of type "application/octet-stream" (4393 bytes)

Download attachment "repro.syz" of type "application/octet-stream" (51859 bytes)

Download attachment ".config" of type "application/xml" (273663 bytes)

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