CVE-2023-54023 Affecting kernel-source package, versions <6.4.0-150600.23.84.1
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Test your applications- Snyk IDSNYK-SLES156-KERNELSOURCE-15104535
- published27 Jan 2026
- disclosed26 Jan 2026
Introduced: 26 Jan 2026
CVE-2023-54023 (opens in a new tab)How to fix?
Upgrade SLES:15.6 kernel-source to version 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 or higher.
NVD Description
Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-source package and not the kernel-source package as distributed by SLES.
See How to fix? for SLES:15.6 relevant fixed versions and status.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
btrfs: fix race between balance and cancel/pause
Syzbot reported a panic that looks like this:
assertion failed: fs_info->exclusive_operation == BTRFS_EXCLOP_BALANCE_PAUSED, in fs/btrfs/ioctl.c:465 ------------[ cut here ]------------ kernel BUG at fs/btrfs/messages.c:259! RIP: 0010:btrfs_assertfail+0x2c/0x30 fs/btrfs/messages.c:259 Call Trace: <TASK> btrfs_exclop_balance fs/btrfs/ioctl.c:465 [inline] btrfs_ioctl_balance fs/btrfs/ioctl.c:3564 [inline] btrfs_ioctl+0x531e/0x5b30 fs/btrfs/ioctl.c:4632 vfs_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:51 [inline] __do_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:870 [inline] __se_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:856 [inline] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x197/0x210 fs/ioctl.c:856 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x39/0xb0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd
The reproducer is running a balance and a cancel or pause in parallel. The way balance finishes is a bit wonky, if we were paused we need to save the balance_ctl in the fs_info, but clear it otherwise and cleanup. However we rely on the return values being specific errors, or having a cancel request or no pause request. If balance completes and returns 0, but we have a pause or cancel request we won't do the appropriate cleanup, and then the next time we try to start a balance we'll trip this ASSERT.
The error handling is just wrong here, we always want to clean up, unless we got -ECANCELLED and we set the appropriate pause flag in the exclusive op. With this patch the reproducer ran for an hour without tripping, previously it would trip in less than a few minutes.
References
- https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-54023.html
- https://bugzilla.suse.com/1256301
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/72efe5d44821e38540888a5fe3ff3d0faab6acad
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b19c98f237cd76981aaded52c258ce93f7daa8cb
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ddf7e8984c83aee9122552529f4e77291903f8d9