UBUNTU-CVE-2026-80899: Low severity ubuntu/linux-hwe-edge vulnerability
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: erofs: remove fscache backend entirely EROFS over fscache was introduced to provide image lazy pulling functionality. After the feature landed, the fscache subsystem made netfs a new hard dependency, which is unexpected for a local filesystem and has an kernel-defined caching hierarchy which could be inflexible compared to the fanotify pre-content hooks. Therefore, this feature has been deprecated for almost two years. As EROFS file-backed mounts and fanotify pre-content hooks both upstream for a while and already providing equivalent functionality (erofs-utils has supported fanotify pre-content hooks), let's remove the fscache backend now. The main application of this feature is Nydus [1], and they plan to move to use fanotify pre-content hooks in the near future too. I hope this patch can be merged into Linux 7.2, which is also motivated by newly found implementation issues [2][3] that are not worth investigating given the deprecation and limited development resources. The associated fscache/cachefiles cleanup patch will follow separately through the vfs tree (netfs) later: it seems fine since the codebase is isolated by CONFIGCACHEFILESONDEMAND. [1] https://github.com/dragonflyoss/nydus/blob/v2.1.0/docs/nydus-fscache.md [2] https://github.com/dragonflyoss/nydus/pull/1824 [3] https://lore.kernel.org/r/20260619135800.1594811-1-michael.bommarito@gmail.com
Affected Software
Remediation
Recommended actions to resolve this vulnerability, in priority order.
- Upgrade
Upgrade
ubuntu/linux-hwe-7.0to a version that resolves this vulnerability.Fixed in 7.0.0-42.42~24.04.1 - Upgrade
Upgrade
ubuntu/linux-riscv-7.0to a version that resolves this vulnerability.Fixed in 7.0.0-42.42.1~24.04.1 - Upgrade
Upgrade
ubuntu/linuxto a version that resolves this vulnerability.Fixed in 7.0.0-42.42 - Upgrade
Upgrade
ubuntu/linux-awsto a version that resolves this vulnerability.Fixed in 7.0.0-1016.17 - Upgrade
Upgrade
ubuntu/linux-gcpto a version that resolves this vulnerability.Fixed in 7.0.0-1016.18 - Upgrade
Upgrade
ubuntu/linux-ibmto a version that resolves this vulnerability.Fixed in 7.0.0-1017.17 - Upgrade
Upgrade
ubuntu/linux-oem-7.0to a version that resolves this vulnerability.Fixed in 7.0.0-1017.17 - Upgrade
Upgrade
ubuntu/linux-oracleto a version that resolves this vulnerability.Fixed in 7.0.0-1015.16 - Upgrade
Upgrade
ubuntu/linux-riscvto a version that resolves this vulnerability.Fixed in 7.0.0-42.42.1 - Remove
Remove
EROFS fscache backendfrom your environment.Remove the EROFS fscache backend entirely.
Event History
Frequently Asked Questions
Which deployments are most likely to be affected?
The affected functionality is the EROFS fscache backend, whose stated main application is Nydus for image lazy pulling. Systems using EROFS only as a local filesystem without this backend are not identified as exposed by the provided information.
What can be used instead of the removed EROFS fscache backend?
EROFS file-backed mounts and fanotify pre-content hooks are described as providing equivalent functionality. The data states that erofs-utils already supports fanotify pre-content hooks, and Nydus plans to move to them.
Why is this backend being removed instead of having its implementation issues fixed?
The backend had been deprecated for almost two years, and the description characterizes its use as limited. It also says newly found implementation issues were not considered worth investigating given the deprecation and limited development resources.