CVE-2026-89601: ext2: Fix lost inode updates for IS_SYNC inodes

CVE-2026-89601: ext2: Fix lost inode updates for IS_SYNC inodes

[Greg Kroah-Hartman]

From: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@kernel.org>

Description
===========

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

ext2: Fix lost inode updates for IS_SYNC inodes

ext2_setsize() and ext2_xattr_set2() had a construct like:

	if (IS_SYNC(inode)) {
		sync_inode_metadata(inode, 1);
	} else {
		mark_inode_dirty(inode);
	}

which leads to lost inode updates for IS_SYNC inodes because
sync_inode_metadata() does anything only if the inode is already dirty
and hence inode updates may be simply lost. Fix the problem by
unconditionally marking the inode dirty and *then* call
sync_inode_metadata().

The Linux kernel CVE team has assigned CVE-2026-89601 to this issue.


Affected and fixed versions
===========================

	Fixed in 7.2.4 with commit 5efb3350230fef831167740e69e6db2861101186
	Fixed in 7.3-rc1 with commit 356984d1a5c32e94810cbb6c8dc7d8ff2d4d919a

Please see https://www.kernel.org for a full list of currently supported
kernel versions by the kernel community.

Unaffected versions might change over time as fixes are backported to
older supported kernel versions.  The official CVE entry at
	https://cve.org/CVERecord/?id=CVE-2026-89601
will be updated if fixes are backported, please check that for the most
up to date information about this issue.


Affected files
==============

The file(s) affected by this issue are:
	fs/ext2/inode.c
	fs/ext2/xattr.c


Mitigation
==========

The Linux kernel CVE team recommends that you update to the latest
stable kernel version for this, and many other bugfixes.  Individual
changes are never tested alone, but rather are part of a larger kernel
release.  Cherry-picking individual commits is not recommended or
supported by the Linux kernel community at all.  If however, updating to
the latest release is impossible, the individual changes to resolve this
issue can be found at these commits:
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5efb3350230fef831167740e69e6db2861101186
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/356984d1a5c32e94810cbb6c8dc7d8ff2d4d919a