CVE-2026-43067

Status: UPDATED  |  Advisory ID: CVE-2026-43067

Key Details

Affected Products, Subsystems & Sectors

What to Know

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ext4: handle wraparound when searching for blocks for indirect mapped blocks

Commit 4865c768b563 ("ext4: always allocate blocks only from groups

inode can use") restricts what blocks will be allocated for indirect

block based files to block numbers that fit within 32-bit block

numbers.

However, when using a review bot running on the latest Gemini LLM to

check this commit when backporting into an LTS based kernel, it raised

this concern:

If ac->ac_g_ex.fe_group is >= ngroups (for instance, if the goal

group was populated via stream allocation from s_mb_last_groups),

then start will be >= ngroups.

Does this allow allocating blocks beyond the 32-bit limit for

indirect block mapped files? The commit message mentions that

ext4_mb_scan_groups_linear() takes care to not select unsupported

groups. However, its loop uses group = *start, and the very first

iteration will call ext4_mb_scan_group() with this unsupported

group because next_linear_group() is only called at the end of the

iteration.

After reviewing the code paths involved and considering the LLM

review, I determined that this can happen when there is a file system

where some files/directories are extent-mapped and others are

indirect-block mapped. To address this, add a safety clamp in

ext4_mb_scan_groups(). (NVD)

What to Do

Monitor Linux's web page for any future patch releases.

References