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Reference page — cumulative record through Thursday, August 20, 2026 UTC. Reference pages update as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record.

CVE-2021-46958

Linux Linux — btrfs: fix race between transaction aborts and fsyncs leading to use-after-free
  AV  AC  PR  UI  S  C  I  A   CVSS    EPSS   %ile   KEV
   L   H   L   N  U  N  N  H    4.7   .0024   15.8     —
AFFECTED
  Product  Versions                                    Fixed
  Linux    ef67963dac255b293e19815ea3d440567be4626f –  —
  Linux    5.7 –                                       5.10.36
TIMELINE
  Feb 27  Reserved by Linux
  Feb 27  Published (CNA: Linux)
  Aug 4   RESCORED — CVE-2021-46958 (Linux). CVSS 7.8 → 4.7 (NVD).
CWE-416 · CNA: Linux · CVSS v3.1 · 4 references · NVD status: Modified

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: fix race between transaction aborts and fsyncs leading to use-after-free There is a race between a task aborting a transaction during a commit, a task doing an fsync and the transaction kthread, which leads to an use-after-free of the log root tree. When this happens, it results in a stack trace like the following: BTRFS info (device dm-0): forced readonly BTRFS warning (device dm-0): Skipping commit of aborted transaction. BTRFS: error (device dm-0) in cleanup_transaction:1958: errno=-5 IO failure BTRFS warning (device dm-0): lost page write due to IO error on /dev/mapper/error-test (-5) BTRFS warning (device dm-0): Skipping commit of aborted transaction. BTRFS warning (device dm-0): direct IO failed ino 261 rw 0,0 sector 0xa4e8 len 4096 err no 10 BTRFS error (device dm-0): error writing primary super block to device 1 BTRFS warning (device dm-0): direct IO failed ino 261 rw 0,0 sector 0x12e000 len 4096 err no 10 BTRFS warning (device dm-0): direct IO failed ino 261 rw 0,0 sector 0x12e008 len 4096 err no 10 BTRFS warning (device dm-0): direct IO failed ino 261 rw 0,0 sector 0x12e010 len 4096 err no 10 BTRFS: error (device dm-0) in write_all_supers:4110: errno=-5 IO failure (1 errors while writing supers) BTRFS: error (device dm-0) in btrfs_sync_log:3308: errno=-5 IO failure general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0x6b6b6b6b6b6b6b68: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP DEBUG_PAGEALLOC PTI CPU: 2 PID: 2458471 Comm: fsstress Not tainted 5.12.0-rc5-btrfs-next-84 #1 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.14.0-0-g155821a1990b-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:__mutex_lock+0x139/0xa40 Code: c0 74 19 (...) RSP: 0018:ffff9f18830d7b00 EFLAGS: 00010202 RAX: 6b6b6b6b6b6b6b68 RBX: 0000000000000001 RCX: 0000000000000002 RDX: ffffffffb9c54d13 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: 0000000000000000 RBP: ffff9f18830d7bc0 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: ffff9f18830d7be0 R11: 0000000000000001 R12: ffff8c6cd199c040 R13: ffff8c6c95821358 R14: 00000000fffffffb R15: ffff8c6cbcf01358 FS: 00007fa9140c2b80(0000) GS:ffff8c6fac600000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00007fa913d52000 CR3: 000000013d2b4003 CR4: 0000000000370ee0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 Call Trace: ? __btrfs_handle_fs_error+0xde/0x146 [btrfs] ? btrfs_sync_log+0x7c1/0xf20 [btrfs] ? btrfs_sync_log+0x7c1/0xf20 [btrfs] btrfs_sync_log+0x7c1/0xf20 [btrfs] btrfs_sync_file+0x40c/0x580 [btrfs] do_fsync+0x38/0x70 __x64_sys_fsync+0x10/0x20 do_syscall_64+0x33/0x80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae RIP: 0033:0x7fa9142a55c3 Code: 8b 15 09 (...) RSP: 002b:00007fff26278d48 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 000000000000004a RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000563c83cb4560 RCX: 00007fa9142a55c3 RDX: 00007fff26278cb0 RSI: 00007fff26278cb0 RDI: 0000000000000005 RBP: 0000000000000005 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: 00007fff26278d5c R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 0000000000000340 R13: 00007fff26278de0 R14: 00007fff26278d96 R15: 0000563c83ca57c0 Modules linked in: btrfs dm_zero dm_snapshot dm_thin_pool (...) ---[ end trace ee2f1b19327d791d ]--- The steps that lead to this crash are the following: 1) We are at transaction N; 2) We have two tasks with a transaction handle attached to transaction N. Task A and Task B. Task B is doing an fsync; 3) Task B is at btrfs_sync_log(), and has saved fs_info->log_root_tree into a local variable named 'log_root_tree' at the top of btrfs_sync_log(). Task B is about to call write_all_supers(), but before that... 4) Task A calls btrfs_commit_transaction(), and after it sets the transaction state to TRANS_STATE_COMMIT_START, an error happens before it w ---truncated---

Lifecycle

Complete event history — 3 events, chronological
DateEventDetail
February 27, 2024ReservedReserved by Linux
February 27, 2024PublishedPublished (CNA: Linux)
August 4, 2026RESCOREDRESCORED — CVE-2021-46958 (Linux). CVSS 7.8 → 4.7 (NVD).

Affected

Affected products and packages — 2 rows
VendorProduct / PackageEcosystemVersion introducedFixed
LinuxLinuxef67963dac255b293e19815ea3d440567be4626f
LinuxLinux5.75.10.36

Weaknesses

CWE-416

References (4)

Related

Authoritative record: CVE-2021-46958 at cve.org

Vendors: linux

Weaknesses: CWE-416

About this page

This is a reference page, not a dated page of record. It assembles the complete lifecycle of CVE-2021-46958 from the CVE Program record, NVD enrichment, the CISA KEV catalog, EPSS, and OSV advisories. The box score's numbers (CVSS, EPSS, KEV status) are current as of Thursday, August 20, 2026 UTC and are re-derived as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record. The authoritative source for this identifier is cve.org.