CVE-2026-45858 — ext4: don't zero the entire extent if EXT4_EXT_DATA_PARTIAL_VALID1

Affected: Linux

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ext4: don't zero the entire extent if EXT4_EXT_DATA_PARTIAL_VALID1

When allocating initialized blocks from a large unwritten extent, or when splitting an unwritten extent during end I/O and converting it to initialized, there is currently a potential issue of stale data if the extent needs to be split in the middle.

0 A B N [UUUUUUUUUUUU] U: unwritten extent [--DDDDDDDD--] D: valid data |<- ->| ----> this range needs to be initialized

ext4_split_extent() first try to split this extent at B with EXT4_EXT_DATA_ENTIRE_VALID1 and EXT4_EXT_MAY_ZEROOUT flag set, but ext4_split_extent_at() failed to split this extent due to temporary lack of space. It zeroout B to N and mark the entire extent from 0 to N as written.

0 A B N [WWWWWWWWWWWW] W: written extent [SSDDDDDDDDZZ] Z: zeroed, S: stale data

ext4_split_extent() then try to split this extent at A with EXT4_EXT_DATA_VALID2 flag set. This time, it split successfully and left a stale written extent from 0 to A.

0 A B N [WW|WWWWWWWWWW] [SS|DDDDDDDDZZ]

Fix this by pass EXT4_EXT_DATA_PARTIAL_VALID1 to ext4_split_extent_at() when splitting at B, don't convert the entire extent to written and left it as unwritten after zeroing out B to N. The remaining work is just like the standard two-part split. ext4_split_extent() will pass the EXT4_EXT_DATA_VALID2 fla…

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CVE-2026-45858 — ext4: don't zero the entire extent if EXT4_EXT_DATA_PARTIAL_VALID1