Linux Kernel: Critical Filesystem and RCU Fixes

Transcript

Good morning, this is your Linux Kernel briefing for Friday, May 21st, 2026.

Linus Torvalds committed two merge operations yesterday, both focusing on critical bug fixes for kernel 7.1 release candidate 5.

The first merge brings EROFS filesystem fixes from Gao Xiang's tree. These patches resolve two significant issues: a kernel crash related to unaligned zstd extents in the managed cache system, and a memory leak in the metabuf reference handling during shared extended attribute initialization. The fixes modify the core zdata compression handling and xattr initialization code.

The second merge addresses a regression in the RCU subsystem, specifically in SRCU functionality. Boqun Feng's team fixed a problem introduced in commit 61bbcfb50514 where SRCU was queuing work callbacks on CPUs marked as "possible" but never actually brought online. This created a situation where work would accumulate indefinitely, eventually triggering workqueue lockups. The fix ensures work is only queued to CPUs that have actually been online at some point.

Both of these issues represent the type of critical stability fixes typically seen in release candidate phases, addressing real-world crashes and system lockups that could affect production deployments.

What's next: With RC5 fixes now merged, expect the development focus to remain on stability as we approach the 7.1 final release. Additional subsystem maintainers will likely submit their final fix sets over the next few days.

That's your kernel update. Back tomorrow with more development news.