CVE-2024-40955ext4: fix slab-out-of-bounds in ext4_mb_find_good_group_avg_frag_lists()

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ext4: fix slab-out-of-bounds in ext4_mb_find_good_group_avg_frag_lists() We can trigger a slab-out-of-bounds with the following commands: mkfs.ext4 -F /dev/$disk 10G mount /dev/$disk /tmp/test echo 2147483647 > /sys/fs/ext4/$disk/mb_group_prealloc echo test > /tmp/test/file && sync ================================================================== BUG: KASAN: slab-out-of-bounds in ext4_mb_find_good_group_avg_frag_lists+0x8a/0x200 [ext4] Read of size 8 at addr ffff888121b9d0f0 by task kworker/u2:0/11 CPU: 0 PID: 11 Comm: kworker/u2:0 Tainted: GL 6.7.0-next-20240118 #521 Call Trace: dump_stack_lvl+0x2c/0x50 kasan_report+0xb6/0xf0 ext4_mb_find_good_group_avg_frag_lists+0x8a/0x200 [ext4] ext4_mb_regular_allocator+0x19e9/0x2370 [ext4] ext4_mb_new_blocks+0x88a/0x1370 [ext4] ext4_ext_map_blocks+0x14f7/0x2390 [ext4] ext4_map_blocks+0x569/0xea0 [ext4] ext4_do_writepages+0x10f6/0x1bc0 [ext4] [...] ================================================================== The flow of issue triggering is as follows: // Set s_mb_group_prealloc to 2147483647 via sysfs ext4_mb_new_blocks ext4_mb_normalize_request ext4_mb_normalize_group_request ac->ac_g_ex.fe_len = EXT4_SB(sb)->s_mb_group_prealloc ext4_mb_regular_allocator ext4_mb_choose_next_group ext4_mb_choose_next_group_best_avail mb_avg_fragment_size_order order = fls(len) - 2 = 29 ext4_mb_find_good_group_avg_frag_lists frag_list = &sbi->s_mb_avg_fragment_size[order] if (list_empty(frag_list)) // Trigger SOOB! At 4k block size, the length of the s_mb_avg_fragment_size list is 14, but an oversized s_mb_group_prealloc is set, causing slab-out-of-bounds to be triggered by an attempt to access an element at index 29. Add a new attr_id attr_clusters_in_group with values in the range [0, sbi->s_clusters_per_group] and declare mb_group_prealloc as that type to fix the issue. In addition avoid returning an order from mb_avg_fragment_size_order() greater than MB_NUM_ORDERS(sb) and reduce some useless loops.

Timeline

Scores

EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)

0.24% · top 85% of all CVEs (12 Nov 2026)

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial

The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 5.5.

Affected products

• Linux · Linux

  • affected 7e170922f06bf46effa7c57f6035fc463d6edc7e – < 677ff4589f1501578fa903a25bb14831d0607992
  • affected 7e170922f06bf46effa7c57f6035fc463d6edc7e – < b829687ae1229224262bcabf49accfa2dbf8db06
  • affected 7e170922f06bf46effa7c57f6035fc463d6edc7e – < 13df4d44a3aaabe61cd01d277b6ee23ead2a5206

• Linux · Linux

  • affected 6.5
  • unaffected < 6.5
  • unaffected 6.6.36 – ≤ 6.6.*
  • unaffected 6.9.7 – ≤ 6.9.*
  • unaffected 6.10 – ≤ *

Sources

The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.

• CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
• CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
• NVD (opens in a new tab)
• FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
• EUVD EUVD-2024-38842 (opens in a new tab)
• OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
• GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
• CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)

Badge for a README or a ticket

[![CVE-2024-40955](https://cveledger.app/badge/CVE-2024-40955.svg)](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2024-40955)

Record last updated 11 May 2026, 20:23 UTC.