[PATCH] btrfs: balance: fix null-ptr-deref in btrfs_may_alloc_data_chunk

From: ZhengYuan Huang

Date: Mon Mar 16 2026 - 09:50:12 EST


[BUG]
Running btrfs balance can trigger a null-ptr-deref before relocating a
data chunk when metadata corruption leaves a chunk in the chunk tree
without a corresponding block group in the in-memory cache:

KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000088-0x000000000000008f]
RIP: 0010:btrfs_may_alloc_data_chunk+0x40/0x1c0 fs/btrfs/volumes.c:3601
Call Trace:
__btrfs_balance fs/btrfs/volumes.c:4217 [inline]
btrfs_balance+0x2516/0x42b0 fs/btrfs/volumes.c:4604
btrfs_ioctl_balance fs/btrfs/ioctl.c:3577 [inline]
btrfs_ioctl+0x25cf/0x5b90 fs/btrfs/ioctl.c:5313
...

[CAUSE]
__btrfs_balance() iterates the on-disk chunk tree and passes the chunk
logical bytenr to btrfs_may_alloc_data_chunk() before relocating a data
chunk. That helper then queries the in-memory block group cache:

cache = btrfs_lookup_block_group(fs_info, chunk_offset);
chunk_type = cache->flags; /* cache may be NULL */

On a corrupt image can contain a chunk item whose matching block group
item is missing, so no block group is ever inserted into the cache. In
that case btrfs_lookup_block_group() returns NULL.

The code only guards this with ASSERT(cache), which becomes a no-op when
CONFIG_BTRFS_ASSERT is disabled. The subsequent dereference of
cache->flags therefore crashes the kernel.

[FIX]
Add a NULL check after btrfs_lookup_block_group() in
btrfs_may_alloc_data_chunk(). If the lookup fails, emit a btrfs_err()
message identifying the affected bytenr and return -EUCLEAN to report
filesystem corruption instead of dereferencing NULL.

The caller already treats negative returns from
btrfs_may_alloc_data_chunk() as fatal errors, so balance aborts cleanly
and reports the corruption to userspace.

Fixes: a6f93c71d412 ("Btrfs: avoid losing data raid profile when deleting a device")
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Signed-off-by: ZhengYuan Huang <gality369@xxxxxxxxx>
---
fs/btrfs/volumes.c | 6 +++++-
1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/fs/btrfs/volumes.c b/fs/btrfs/volumes.c
index 4958e074d420..4657b826b48b 100644
--- a/fs/btrfs/volumes.c
+++ b/fs/btrfs/volumes.c
@@ -3597,7 +3597,12 @@ static int btrfs_may_alloc_data_chunk(struct btrfs_fs_info *fs_info,
u64 bytes_used;
u64 chunk_type;

cache = btrfs_lookup_block_group(fs_info, chunk_offset);
- ASSERT(cache);
+ if (!cache) {
+ btrfs_err(fs_info,
+ "balance: chunk at bytenr %llu has no corresponding block group",
+ chunk_offset);
+ return -EUCLEAN;
+ }
chunk_type = cache->flags;
btrfs_put_block_group(cache);

--
2.43.0