Linux KernelOperating system · Linux

CVE-2025-71183

MEDIUM · 5.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2026-01-31
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 3.19 / 4.2 or later.
See remediation →
57/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Zero-click Patch available

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 · unedited
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: always detect conflicting inodes when logging inode refs After rename exchanging (either with the rename exchange operation or regular renames in multiple non-atomic steps) two inodes and at least one of them is a directory, we can end up with a log tree that contains only of the inodes and after a power failure that can result in an attempt to delete the other inode when it should not because it was not deleted before the power failure. In some case that delete attempt fails when the target inode is a directory that contains a subvolume inside it, since the log replay code is not prepared to deal with directory entries that point to root items (only inode items). 1) We have directories "dir1" (inode A) and "dir2" (inode B) under the same parent directory; 2) We have a file (inode C) under directory "dir1" (inode A); 3) We have a subvolume inside directory "dir2" (inode B); 4) All these inodes were persisted in a past transaction and we are currently at transaction N; 5) We rename the file (inode C), so at btrfs_log_new_name() we update inode C's last_unlink_trans to N; 6) We get a rename exchange for "dir1" (inode A) and "dir2" (inode B), so after the exchange "dir1" is inode B and "dir2" is inode A. During the rename exchange we call btrfs_log_new_name() for inodes A and B, but because they are directories, we don't update their last_unlink_trans to N; 7) An fsync against the file (inode C) is done, and because its inode has a last_unlink_trans with a value of N we log its parent directory (inode A) (through btrfs_log_all_parents(), called from btrfs_log_inode_parent()). 8) So we end up with inode B not logged, which now has the old name of inode A. At copy_inode_items_to_log(), when logging inode A, we did not check if we had any conflicting inode to log because inode A has a generation lower than the current transaction (created in a past transaction); 9) After a power failure, when replaying the log tree, since we find that inode A has a new name that conflicts with the name of inode B in the fs tree, we attempt to delete inode B... this is wrong since that directory was never deleted before the power failure, and because there is a subvolume inside that directory, attempting to delete it will fail since replay_dir_deletes() and btrfs_unlink_inode() are not prepared to deal with dir items that point to roots instead of inodes. When that happens the mount fails and we get a stack trace like the following: [87.2314] BTRFS info (device dm-0): start tree-log replay [87.2318] BTRFS critical (device dm-0): failed to delete reference to subvol, root 5 inode 256 parent 259 [87.2332] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [87.2338] BTRFS: Transaction aborted (error -2) [87.2346] WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 638968 at fs/btrfs/inode.c:4345 __btrfs_unlink_inode+0x416/0x440 [btrfs] [87.2368] Modules linked in: btrfs loop dm_thin_pool (...) [87.2470] CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 638968 Comm: mount Tainted: G W 6.18.0-rc7-btrfs-next-218+ #2 PREEMPT(full) [87.2489] Tainted: [W]=WARN [87.2494] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.16.2-0-gea1b7a073390-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 [87.2514] RIP: 0010:__btrfs_unlink_inode+0x416/0x440 [btrfs] [87.2538] Code: c0 89 04 24 (...) [87.2568] RSP: 0018:ffffc0e741f4b9b8 EFLAGS: 00010286 [87.2574] RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ffff9d3ec8a6cf60 RCX: 0000000000000000 [87.2582] RDX: 0000000000000002 RSI: ffffffff84ab45a1 RDI: 00000000ffffffff [87.2591] RBP: ffff9d3ec8a6ef20 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: ffffc0e741f4b840 [87.2599] R10: ffff9d45dc1fffa8 R11: 0000000000000003 R12: ffff9d3ee26d77e0 [87.2608] R13: ffffc0e741f4ba98 R14: ffff9d4458040800 R15: ffff9d44b6b7ca10 [87.2618] FS: 00007f7b9603a840(0000) GS:ffff9d4658982000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [87. ---truncated---

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 analysis

A detailed technical summary for this CVE is being prepared.

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
Affected:>= 3.18.32, < 3.19>= 4.1.23, < 4.2>= 4.4.8, < 4.5>= 4.5.2, < 4.6>= 4.6.1, < 6.1.161>= 6.2, < 6.6.121>= 6.7, < 6.12.66>= 6.13, < 6.18.6= 4.6= 6.19

CVSS 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 · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 3.19 / 4.2 / 4.5 or later
Fixed in 3.194.24.5
Vendor patch git.kernel.org →
Recommended fix High confidence

Upgrade to kernel 3.19 (for 3.18.x), 4.2 (for 4.1.x), 4.5 (for 4.4.x), 4.6 (for 4.5.x), or preferably a newer stable kernel like 6.x

  1. 1. Identify the currently running Linux kernel version using 'uname -r'
  2. 2. Based on the affected version range your kernel falls into, upgrade to the next stable release that contains the fix: for 3.18.x upgrade to 3.19, for 4.1.x upgrade to 4.2, for 4.4.x upgrade to 4.5, for 4.5.x upgrade to 4.6
  3. 3. Alternatively, and preferably, upgrade to a more recent stable kernel version (e.g., 6.x series) which includes this fix and many other security improvements
  4. 4. After kernel upgrade, reboot the system to load the fixed kernel
  5. 5. For production systems, test the upgrade in a staging environment first to verify compatibility with existing btrfs filesystems
Caveat These are very old kernel versions (2015-2016 era). Upgrading to newer kernels may introduce compatibility issues with older system software, drivers, or custom modules. Thorough testing is recommended.

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $1,600. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-71183 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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