CVE: CVE-2022-50546
Published: 2025-10-07
Description: In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ext4: fix uninititialized value in 'ext4_evict_inode'

Syzbot found the following issue:
=====================================================
BUG: KMSAN: uninit-value in ext4_evict_inode+0xdd/0x26b0 fs/ext4/inode.c:180
 ext4_evict_inode+0xdd/0x26b0 fs/ext4/inode.c:180
 evict+0x365/0x9a0 fs/inode.c:664
 iput_final fs/inode.c:1747 [inline]
 iput+0x985/0xdd0 fs/inode.c:1773
 __ext4_new_inode+0xe54/0x7ec0 fs/ext4/ialloc.c:1361
 ext4_mknod+0x376/0x840 fs/ext4/namei.c:2844
 vfs_mknod+0x79d/0x830 fs/namei.c:3914
 do_mknodat+0x47d/0xaa0
 __do_sys_mknodat fs/namei.c:3992 [inline]
 __se_sys_mknodat fs/namei.c:3989 [inline]
 __ia32_sys_mknodat+0xeb/0x150 fs/namei.c:3989
 do_syscall_32_irqs_on arch/x86/entry/common.c:112 [inline]
 __do_fast_syscall_32+0xa2/0x100 arch/x86/entry/common.c:178
 do_fast_syscall_32+0x33/0x70 arch/x86/entry/common.c:203
 do_SYSENTER_32+0x1b/0x20 arch/x86/entry/common.c:246
 entry_SYSENTER_compat_after_hwframe+0x70/0x82

Uninit was created at:
 __alloc_pages+0x9f1/0xe80 mm/page_alloc.c:5578
 alloc_pages+0xaae/0xd80 mm/mempolicy.c:2285
 alloc_slab_page mm/slub.c:1794 [inline]
 allocate_slab+0x1b5/0x1010 mm/slub.c:1939
 new_slab mm/slub.c:1992 [inline]
 ___slab_alloc+0x10c3/0x2d60 mm/slub.c:3180
 __slab_alloc mm/slub.c:3279 [inline]
 slab_alloc_node mm/slub.c:3364 [inline]
 slab_alloc mm/slub.c:3406 [inline]
 __kmem_cache_alloc_lru mm/slub.c:3413 [inline]
 kmem_cache_alloc_lru+0x6f3/0xb30 mm/slub.c:3429
 alloc_inode_sb include/linux/fs.h:3117 [inline]
 ext4_alloc_inode+0x5f/0x860 fs/ext4/super.c:1321
 alloc_inode+0x83/0x440 fs/inode.c:259
 new_inode_pseudo fs/inode.c:1018 [inline]
 new_inode+0x3b/0x430 fs/inode.c:1046
 __ext4_new_inode+0x2a7/0x7ec0 fs/ext4/ialloc.c:959
 ext4_mkdir+0x4d5/0x1560 fs/ext4/namei.c:2992
 vfs_mkdir+0x62a/0x870 fs/namei.c:4035
 do_mkdirat+0x466/0x7b0 fs/namei.c:4060
 __do_sys_mkdirat fs/namei.c:4075 [inline]
 __se_sys_mkdirat fs/namei.c:4073 [inline]
 __ia32_sys_mkdirat+0xc4/0x120 fs/namei.c:4073
 do_syscall_32_irqs_on arch/x86/entry/common.c:112 [inline]
 __do_fast_syscall_32+0xa2/0x100 arch/x86/entry/common.c:178
 do_fast_syscall_32+0x33/0x70 arch/x86/entry/common.c:203
 do_SYSENTER_32+0x1b/0x20 arch/x86/entry/common.c:246
 entry_SYSENTER_compat_after_hwframe+0x70/0x82

CPU: 1 PID: 4625 Comm: syz-executor.2 Not tainted 6.1.0-rc4-syzkaller-62821-gcb231e2f67ec #0
Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 10/26/2022
=====================================================

Now, 'ext4_alloc_inode()' didn't init 'ei->i_flags'. If new inode failed
before set 'ei->i_flags' in '__ext4_new_inode()', then do 'iput()'. As after
6bc0d63dad7f commit will access 'ei->i_flags' in 'ext4_evict_inode()' which
will lead to access uninit-value.
To solve above issue just init 'ei->i_flags' in 'ext4_alloc_inode()'.
CVSS Score: 7.8 (HIGH)
CWE: CWE-908
References: https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/091f85db4c3fb1734a6d7fb4777a2b2831da6631; https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3c31d8d3ad95aef8cc17a4fcf317e[PII_REDACTED]9; https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/56491d60ddca9c697d885394cb0173675b9ab81f