CVE-2026-74321

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: fix invalid pointer dereference in __btrfs_run_delayed_refs() In the beginning of the loop, we try to obtain a locked delayed ref head, if 'locked_ref' is currently NULL, by calling btrfs_select_ref_head(), which can return an error pointer. If the error pointer is -EAGAIN we do a continue and go back to the beginning of the loop, which will not try again to call btrfs_select_ref_head() since 'locked_ref' is no longer NULL but it's ERR_PTR(-EAGAIN), and then we do: spin_lock(&locked_ref->lock); against a ERR_PTR(-EAGAIN) value, generating an invalid pointer dereference. Fix this by ensuring that 'locked_ref' is set to NULL when btrfs_select_ref_head() returns ERR_PTR(-EAGAIN) and incrementing 'count' as well, to prevent infinite looping. We do this by doing a goto to the bottom of the loop that already sets 'locked_ref' to NULL and does a cond_resched(), with an increment to 'count' right before the goto. These measures were in place before the refactoring in commit 0110a4c43451 ("btrfs: refactor __btrfs_run_delayed_refs loop") but were unintentionally lost afterwards.

Affected products

Kernel, Linux, Linux-Allwinner-5.19, Linux-Aws, Linux-Aws-5.0, Linux-Aws-5.11, Linux-Aws-5.13, Linux-Aws-5.15

CVSS 3.1

7.5 HIGH

EPSS

0.5% (41th percentile)

NVD status

Received

Published

2026-08-15

No exploit for CVE-2026-74321 has been indexed yet. Our index is built from live traffic and upstream syncs, so this page can only say what it knows — not that no exploit exists.