[PATCH 6.19 305/342] ext4: handle wraparound when searching for blocks for indirect mapped blocks

Greg Kroah-Hartman
2026-03-31T16:45:34Z

From: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>

commit bb81702370fad22c06ca12b6e1648754dbc37e0f upstream.

Commit 4865c768b563 ("ext4: always allocate blocks only from groups
inode can use") restricts what blocks will be allocated for indirect
block based files to block numbers that fit within 32-bit block
numbers.

However, when using a review bot running on the latest Gemini LLM to
check this commit when backporting into an LTS based kernel, it raised
this concern:

If ac->ac_g_ex.fe_group is >= ngroups (for instance, if the goal
group was populated via stream allocation from s_mb_last_groups),
then start will be >= ngroups.

Does this allow allocating blocks beyond the 32-bit limit for
indirect block mapped files? The commit message mentions that
ext4_mb_scan_groups_linear() takes care to not select unsupported
groups. However, its loop uses group = *start, and the very first
iteration will call ext4_mb_scan_group() with this unsupported
group because next_linear_group() is only called at the end of the
iteration.

After reviewing the code paths involved and considering the LLM
review, I determined that this can happen when there is a file system
where some files/directories are extent-mapped and others are
indirect-block mapped. To address this, add a safety clamp in
ext4_mb_scan_groups().

Fixes: 4865c768b563 ("ext4: always allocate blocks only from groups inode can use")
Cc: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Reviewed-by: Baokun Li <libaokun@linux.alibaba.com>
Reviewed-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260326045834.1175822-1-tytso@mit.edu
Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>
Cc: stable@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
---
fs/ext4/mballoc.c | 2 ++
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)

--- a/fs/ext4/mballoc.c
+++ b/fs/ext4/mballoc.c
@@ -1199,6 +1199,8 @@ static int ext4_mb_scan_groups(struct ex

/* searching for the right group start from the goal value specified */
start = ac->ac_g_ex.fe_group;
+ if (start >= ngroups)
+ start = 0;
ac->ac_prefetch_grp = start;
ac->ac_prefetch_nr = 0;