CVE-2025-40237
Dec. 23, 2025, 5:15 p.m.
None
No Score
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
fs/notify: call exportfs_encode_fid with s_umount
Calling intotify_show_fdinfo() on fd watching an overlayfs inode, while
the overlayfs is being unmounted, can lead to dereferencing NULL ptr.
This issue was found by syzkaller.
Race Condition Diagram:
Thread 1 Thread 2
-------- --------
generic_shutdown_super()
shrink_dcache_for_umount
sb->s_root = NULL
|
| vfs_read()
| inotify_fdinfo()
| * inode get from mark *
| show_mark_fhandle(m, inode)
| exportfs_encode_fid(inode, ..)
| ovl_encode_fh(inode, ..)
| ovl_check_encode_origin(inode)
| * deref i_sb->s_root *
|
|
v
fsnotify_sb_delete(sb)
Which then leads to:
[ 32.133461] Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000006: 0000 [#1] SMP DEBUG_PAGEALLOC KASAN NOPTI
[ 32.134438] KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000030-0x0000000000000037]
[ 32.135032] CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 4468 Comm: systemd-coredum Not tainted 6.17.0-rc6 #22 PREEMPT(none)
<snip registers, unreliable trace>
[ 32.143353] Call Trace:
[ 32.143732] ovl_encode_fh+0xd5/0x170
[ 32.144031] exportfs_encode_inode_fh+0x12f/0x300
[ 32.144425] show_mark_fhandle+0xbe/0x1f0
[ 32.145805] inotify_fdinfo+0x226/0x2d0
[ 32.146442] inotify_show_fdinfo+0x1c5/0x350
[ 32.147168] seq_show+0x530/0x6f0
[ 32.147449] seq_read_iter+0x503/0x12a0
[ 32.148419] seq_read+0x31f/0x410
[ 32.150714] vfs_read+0x1f0/0x9e0
[ 32.152297] ksys_read+0x125/0x240
IOW ovl_check_encode_origin derefs inode->i_sb->s_root, after it was set
to NULL in the unmount path.
Fix it by protecting calling exportfs_encode_fid() from
show_mark_fhandle() with s_umount lock.
This form of fix was suggested by Amir in [1].
[1]: https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAOQ4uxhbDwhb+2Brs1UdkoF0a3NSdBAOQPNfEHjahrgoKJpLEw@mail.gmail.com/
Product(s) Impacted
| Product | Versions |
|---|---|
| linux_kernel |
|
Weaknesses
Common security weaknesses mapped to this vulnerability.
References
Tags
Timeline
Published: Dec. 4, 2025, 4:16 p.m.
Last Modified: Dec. 23, 2025, 5:15 p.m.
Last Modified: Dec. 23, 2025, 5:15 p.m.
Status : Awaiting Analysis
CVE has been marked for Analysis. Normally once in this state the CVE will be analyzed by NVD staff within 24 hours.
More infoSource
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
*Disclaimer: Some vulnerabilities do not have an associated CPE. To enhance the data, we use AI to infer CPEs based on CVE details. This is an automated process and might not always be accurate.