Linux KernelOperating system · Linux
CVE-2023-52622
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedIn the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ext4: avoid online resizing failures due to oversized flex bg When we online resize an ext4 filesystem with a oversized flexbg_size, mkfs.ext4 -F -G 67108864 $dev -b 4096 100M mount $dev $dir resize2fs $dev 16G the following WARN_ON is triggered: ================================================================== WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 427 at mm/page_alloc.c:4402 __alloc_pages+0x411/0x550 Modules linked in: sg(E) CPU: 0 PID: 427 Comm: resize2fs Tainted: G E 6.6.0-rc5+ #314 RIP: 0010:__alloc_pages+0x411/0x550 Call Trace: <TASK> __kmalloc_large_node+0xa2/0x200 __kmalloc+0x16e/0x290 ext4_resize_fs+0x481/0xd80 __ext4_ioctl+0x1616/0x1d90 ext4_ioctl+0x12/0x20 __x64_sys_ioctl+0xf0/0x150 do_syscall_64+0x3b/0x90 ================================================================== This is because flexbg_size is too large and the size of the new_group_data array to be allocated exceeds MAX_ORDER. Currently, the minimum value of MAX_ORDER is 8, the minimum value of PAGE_SIZE is 4096, the corresponding maximum number of groups that can be allocated is: (PAGE_SIZE << MAX_ORDER) / sizeof(struct ext4_new_group_data) ≈ 21845 And the value that is down-aligned to the power of 2 is 16384. Therefore, this value is defined as MAX_RESIZE_BG, and the number of groups added each time does not exceed this value during resizing, and is added multiple times to complete the online resizing. The difference is that the metadata in a flex_bg may be more dispersed.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysisThe application allocates memory, connections, or handles in response to a request without enforcing any cap, so a modest amount of malicious traffic exhausts the resource and denies service to everyone else. The fix is enforcing quotas, limits, and timeouts on what any single request or client can consume.
General guidance for the resource allocation without limits class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data
Linux KernelOperating system
< 4.19.307>= 4.20, < 5.4.269>= 5.5, < 5.10.210>= 5.11, < 5.15.149>= 5.16, < 6.1.77>= 6.2, < 6.6.16>= 6.7, < 6.7.4
Debian LinuxOperating system
= 10.0CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
dbcve · scoped4.19.3075.4.2695.10.210
Upgrade to Linux kernel >= 5.15.149 (or 5.10.210 / 5.4.269 / 4.19.307 depending on your kernel branch)
- Identify the current running kernel version using `uname -r`
- Check which distribution-specific kernel upgrade path applies (Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, etc.)
- For Debian 10 (Buster), apply kernel updates from Debian's security repositories: `apt update && apt install linux-image-$(uname -r | sed 's/.+-.*//')`
- Reboot the system to load the patched kernel
- Verify the fix is applied by checking the kernel version matches or exceeds the fixed release (5.15.149, 5.10.210, 5.4.269, or 4.19.307 depending on your branch)
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2023-52622 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2023-52622 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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