This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled ext4: do not try to set xattr into ea_inode if value is empty to the 5.4-stable tree which can be found at: http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/stable-queue.git;a=summary The filename of the patch is: ext4-do-not-try-to-set-xattr-into-ea_inode-if-value-is-empty.patch and it can be found in the queue-5.4 subdirectory. If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> know about it. >From 6b22489911b726eebbf169caee52fea52013fbdd Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "zhangyi (F)" <yi.zhang@xxxxxxxxxx> Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2021 20:05:08 +0800 Subject: ext4: do not try to set xattr into ea_inode if value is empty From: zhangyi (F) <yi.zhang@xxxxxxxxxx> commit 6b22489911b726eebbf169caee52fea52013fbdd upstream. Syzbot report a warning that ext4 may create an empty ea_inode if set an empty extent attribute to a file on the file system which is no free blocks left. WARNING: CPU: 6 PID: 10667 at fs/ext4/xattr.c:1640 ext4_xattr_set_entry+0x10f8/0x1114 fs/ext4/xattr.c:1640 ... Call trace: ext4_xattr_set_entry+0x10f8/0x1114 fs/ext4/xattr.c:1640 ext4_xattr_block_set+0x1d0/0x1b1c fs/ext4/xattr.c:1942 ext4_xattr_set_handle+0x8a0/0xf1c fs/ext4/xattr.c:2390 ext4_xattr_set+0x120/0x1f0 fs/ext4/xattr.c:2491 ext4_xattr_trusted_set+0x48/0x5c fs/ext4/xattr_trusted.c:37 __vfs_setxattr+0x208/0x23c fs/xattr.c:177 ... Now, ext4 try to store extent attribute into an external inode if ext4_xattr_block_set() return -ENOSPC, but for the case of store an empty extent attribute, store the extent entry into the extent attribute block is enough. A simple reproduce below. fallocate test.img -l 1M mkfs.ext4 -F -b 2048 -O ea_inode test.img mount test.img /mnt dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/foo bs=2048 count=500 setfattr -n "user.test" /mnt/foo Reported-by: syzbot+98b881fdd8ebf45ab4ae@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fixes: 9c6e7853c531 ("ext4: reserve space for xattr entries/names") Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxx Signed-off-by: zhangyi (F) <yi.zhang@xxxxxxxxxx> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20210305120508.298465-1-yi.zhang@xxxxxxxxxx Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@xxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- fs/ext4/xattr.c | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) --- a/fs/ext4/xattr.c +++ b/fs/ext4/xattr.c @@ -2415,7 +2415,7 @@ retry_inode: * external inode if possible. */ if (ext4_has_feature_ea_inode(inode->i_sb) && - !i.in_inode) { + i.value_len && !i.in_inode) { i.in_inode = 1; goto retry_inode; } Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from yi.zhang@xxxxxxxxxx are queue-5.4/ext4-find-old-entry-again-if-failed-to-rename-whiteout.patch queue-5.4/ext4-do-not-try-to-set-xattr-into-ea_inode-if-value-is-empty.patch