5.5

CVE-2023-53149: ext4: avoid deadlock in fs reclaim with page writeback

Modified
AliasesUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53149DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53149
Published 15-09-2025Last modified 30-10-2026

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2023-53149 is a medium (CVSS 5.5) Improper Locking vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.12% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 1.8% of scored vulnerabilities.

Priority
Routine

Not severe (CVSS 5.5, local access); no exploitation reported by the 5 checked sources

Source freshness unavailable

How is this decided?
CVSS score
5.5/10
010
Medium · v3.1 (NVD)
EPSS score
0.12%
0%100%
Low · 0.00 pp in 30 days
KEVNot listedNot listed by any tracked catalog.
RansomwareNot flaggedNo ransomware use recorded.
Public exploits0No public exploits recorded

Advisory lineage

Upstream 0 · Downstream 6 · Related 5
RHSA-2024:2394SUSE-SU-2025:03614-1SUSE-SU-2025:03615-1SUSE-SU-2025:03628-1SUSE-SU-2025:3716-1SUSE-SU-2025:3761-1

Timeline

  1. 15-09-2025
    PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
  2. 30-10-2026
    Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ext4: avoid deadlock in fs reclaim with page writeback Ext4 has a filesystem wide lock protecting ext4_writepages() calls to avoid races with switching of journalled data flag or inode format. This lock can however cause a deadlock like: CPU0 CPU1 ext4_writepages() percpu_down_read(sbi->s_writepages_rwsem); ext4_change_inode_journal_flag() percpu_down_write(sbi->s_writepages_rwsem); - blocks, all readers block from now on ext4_do_writepages() ext4_init_io_end() kmem_cache_zalloc(io_end_cachep, GFP_KERNEL) fs_reclaim frees dentry... dentry_unlink_inode() iput() - last ref => iput_final() - inode dirty => write_inode_now()... ext4_writepages() tries to acquire sbi->s_writepages_rwsem and blocks forever Make sure we cannot recurse into filesystem reclaim from writeback code to avoid the deadlock.

CVSS metrics

4 scores · 3 sources · 2 versions

EPSS trend

Probability

0.12%

Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days

Percentile

2%

Versus all other CVEs

30-day change

No change 0.00 pp

From 0.12% on 04-10-2026

04-10-202603-11-2026

Known exploited

Compare KEV catalogs
CISA KEV

Not in the CISA KEV catalog.

ENISA CNW

Not in the ENISA CNW catalog.

CIRCL

Not in the CIRCL catalog.

Public exploits

0 found

No public exploits indexed.

Weaknesses

CWE · root cause

Affected systems

Version check

Known conditions: local access, low-privilege account, no user interaction (CVSS vector). Other conditions: not stated in public data.

Ubuntu123 products
  • linuxAll versions (No fix recorded)
  • linux-allwinner-5.19All versions (No fix recorded)
  • linux-awsAll versions (No fix recorded)
  • linux-aws-5.0All versions (No fix recorded)
  • linux-aws-5.11All versions (No fix recorded)
Linux2 products
  • linux≥ c8585c6fcaf2011de54c3592e80a634a2b9e1a7f, < 385b49a1f34b26f62e3834c773560b120825b6f8 | ≥ c8585c6fcaf2011de54c3592e80a634a2b9e1a7f, < 2ec97dc90df40c50e509809dc9a198638a7e18b6 | ≥ c8585c6fcaf2011de54c3592e80a634a2b9e1a7f, < 4b4340bf04ce9a52061f15000ecedd126abc093c | ≥ c8585c6fcaf2011de54c3592e80a634a2b9e1a7f, < 00d873c17e29cc32d90ca852b82685f1673acaa5 | 4.7
  • linux_kernel≥ 4.7, < 6.2.16 | ≥ 6.3, < 6.3.3 | 6.4:rc1
Debian1 product
  • linuxAll versions (No fix recorded) | < 6.3.7-1

3 vendors · 126 products

References

8 links