CVE-2026-43361 | btrfs: fix transaction abort when snapshotting received subvolumes

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: fix transaction abort when snapshotting received subvolumes Currently a user can trigger a transaction abort by snapshotting a previously received snapshot a bunch of times until we reach a BTRFS_UUID_KEY_RECEIVED_SUBVOL item overflow (the maximum item size we can store in a leaf). This is very likely not common in practice, but if it happens, it turns the filesystem into RO mode. The snapshot, send and set_received_subvol and subvol_setflags (used by receive) don't require CAP_SYS_ADMIN, just inode_owner_or_capable(). A malicious user could use this to turn a filesystem into RO mode and disrupt a system. Reproducer script: $ cat test.sh #!/bin/bash DEV=/dev/sdi MNT=/mnt/sdi # Use smallest node size to make the test faster. mkfs.btrfs -f --nodesize 4K $DEV mount $DEV $MNT # Create a subvolume and set it to RO so that it can be used for send. btrfs subvolume create $MNT/sv touch $MNT/sv/foo btrfs property set $MNT/sv ro true # Send and receive the subvolume into snaps/sv. mkdir $MNT/snaps btrfs send $MNT/sv | btrfs receive $MNT/snaps # Now snapshot the received subvolume, which has a received_uuid, a # lot of times to trigger the leaf overflow. total=500 for ((i = 1; i <= $total; i++)); do echo -ne "\rCreating snapshot $i/$total" btrfs subvolume snapshot -r $MNT/snaps/sv $MNT/snaps/sv_$i > /dev/null done echo umount $MNT When running the test: $ ./test.sh (...) Create subvolume '/mnt/sdi/sv' At subvol /mnt/sdi/sv At subvol sv Creating snapshot 496/500ERROR: Could not create subvolume: Value too large for defined data type Creating snapshot 497/500ERROR: Could not create subvolume: Read-only file system Creating snapshot 498/500ERROR: Could not create subvolume: Read-only file system Creating snapshot 499/500ERROR: Could not create subvolume: Read-only file system Creating snapshot 500/500ERROR: Could not create subvolume: Read-only file system And in dmesg/syslog: $ dmesg (...) [251067.627338] BTRFS warning (device sdi): insert uuid item failed -75 (0x4628b21c4ac8d898, 0x2598bee2b1515c91) type 252! [251067.629212] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [251067.630033] BTRFS: Transaction aborted (error -75) [251067.630871] WARNING: fs/btrfs/transaction.c:1907 at create_pending_snapshot.cold+0x52/0x465 [btrfs], CPU#10: btrfs/615235 [251067.632851] Modules linked in: btrfs dm_zero (...) [251067.644071] CPU: 10 UID: 0 PID: 615235 Comm: btrfs Tainted: G W 6.19.0-rc8-btrfs-next-225+ #1 PREEMPT(full) [251067.646165] Tainted: [W]=WARN [251067.646733] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.16.2-0-gea1b7a073390-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 [251067.648735] RIP: 0010:create_pending_snapshot.cold+0x55/0x465 [btrfs] [251067.649984] Code: f0 48 0f (...) [251067.653313] RSP: 0018:ffffce644908fae8 EFLAGS: 00010292 [251067.653987] RAX: 00000000ffffff01 RBX: ffff8e5639e63a80 RCX: 00000000ffffffd3 [251067.655042] RDX: ffff8e53faa76b00 RSI: 00000000ffffffb5 RDI: ffffffffc0919750 [251067.656077] RBP: ffffce644908fbd8 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: ffffce644908f820 [251067.657068] R10: ffff8e5adc1fffa8 R11: 0000000000000003 R12: ffff8e53c0431bd0 [251067.658050] R13: ffff8e5414593600 R14: ffff8e55efafd000 R15: 00000000ffffffb5 [251067.659019] FS: 00007f2a4944b3c0(0000) GS:ffff8e5b27dae000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [251067.660115] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [251067.660943] CR2: 00007ffc5aa57898 CR3: 00000005813a2003 CR4: 0000000000370ef0 [251067.661972] Call Trace: [251067.662292] <TASK> [251067.662653] create_pending_snapshots+0x97/0xc0 [btrfs] [251067.663413] btrfs_commit_transaction+0x26e/0xc00 [btrfs] [251067.664257] ? btrfs_qgroup_convert_reserved_meta+0x35/0x390 [btrfs] [251067.665238] ? _raw_spin_unlock+0x15/0x30 [251067.665837] ? record_root_ ---truncated---

Published: 2026-05-08 Last update: 2026-05-15 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2026-43361 is rated Low Risk (24.5/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.02%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2026-43361

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-05-09 0.02%

Full EPSS history (1 record total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2026-43361

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
1.8 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2026-43361

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2026-43361

GHSA-v9r8-chwp-vmrm · Severity: medium — In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: fix transaction abort...

OS Trackers for CVE-2026-43361

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2026-43361 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (linux), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 4, open 1. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2026-43361
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-43361
suse medium CVE-2026-43361 severity moderate: SUSE including 4 source package names (kernel-default, kernel-default-base, kernel-default-devel, kernel-source), 4 product×package rows across 1 product lines (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP4 LTSS EXTREME CORE): Known Not Affected 4. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-43361/
ubuntu medium CVE-2026-43361 medium priority: Ubuntu including 161 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1449 status rows across 9 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, questing, resolute, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1048, ignored 173, needed 130, released 83, not-affected 10, needs-triage 5. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2026-43361

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2026-43361

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel >= 3.12, < 6.1.167 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.2, < 6.6.130 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.7, < 6.12.78 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.13, < 6.18.19 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.19, < 6.19.9 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 7.0 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:7.0:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 7.0 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:7.0:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 7.0 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:7.0:rc3:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2026-43361

cvelogic Threat Intelligence