In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ext4: fix circular lock dependency in ext4_ext_migrate
Move iput(tmp_inode) after ext4_writepages_up_write() to avoid a circular lock dependency between s_writepages_rwsem and sb_internal (freeze protection).
The deadlock scenario:
CPU0 (EXT4_IOC_MIGRATE) CPU1 (orphan cleanup during mount) ---- ---- ext4_ext_migrate() ext4_writepages_down_write() s_writepages_rwsem (write) ext4_evict_inode() sb_start_intwrite() [sb_internal] ... ext4_writepages() s_writepages_rwsem (read) [BLOCKED] iput(tmp_inode) ext4_evict_inode() sb_start_intwrite() [BLOCKED]
The tmp_inode is a temporary inode with nlink=0 created solely for building the extent tree. Its eviction does not require s_writepages_rwsem protection, so deferring iput() until after releasing the rwsem is safe.
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