In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: fix a NULL pointer dereference when failed to start a new trasacntion [BUG] Syzbot reported a NULL pointer dereference with the following crash: FAULT_INJECTION: forcing a failure. start_transaction+0x830/0x1670 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:676 prepare_to_relocate+0x31f/0x4c0 fs/btrfs/relocation.c:3642 relocate_block_group+0x169/0xd20 fs/btrfs/relocation.c:3678 ... BTRFS info (device loop0): balance: ended with status: -12 Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc00000000cc: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN NOPTI KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000660-0x0000000000000667] RIP: 0010:btrfs_update_reloc_root+0x362/0xa80 fs/btrfs/relocation.c:926 Call Trace: <TASK> commit_fs_roots+0x2ee/0x720 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:1496 btrfs_commit_transaction+0xfaf/0x3740 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:2430 del_balance_item fs/btrfs/volumes.c:3678 [inline] reset_balance_state+0x25e/0x3c0 fs/btrfs/volumes.c:3742 btrfs_balance+0xead/0x10c0 fs/btrfs/volumes.c:4574 btrfs_ioctl_balance+0x493/0x7c0 fs/btrfs/ioctl.c:3673 vfs_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:51 [inline] __do_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:907 [inline] __se_sys_ioctl+0xf9/0x170 fs/ioctl.c:893 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:52 [inline] do_syscall_64+0xf3/0x230 arch/x86/entry/common.c:83 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f [CAUSE] The allocation failure happens at the start_transaction() inside prepare_to_relocate(), and during the error handling we call unset_reloc_control(), which makes fs_info->balance_ctl to be NULL. Then we continue the error path cleanup in btrfs_balance() by calling reset_balance_state() which will call del_balance_item() to fully delete the balance item in the root tree. However during the small window between set_reloc_contrl() and unset_reloc_control(), we can have a subvolume tree update and created a reloc_root for that subvolume. Then we go into the final btrfs_commit_transaction() of del_balance_item(), and into btrfs_update_reloc_root() inside commit_fs_roots(). That function checks if fs_info->reloc_ctl is in the merge_reloc_tree stage, but since fs_info->reloc_ctl is NULL, it results a NULL pointer dereference. [FIX] Just add extra check on fs_info->reloc_ctl inside btrfs_update_reloc_root(), before checking fs_info->reloc_ctl->merge_reloc_tree. That DEAD_RELOC_TREE handling is to prevent further modification to the reloc tree during merge stage, but since there is no reloc_ctl at all, we do not need to bother that.