CVE-2026-98980 — namei: don't reveal overmounted entries in refwalk

Affected: Linux

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

namei: don't reveal overmounted entries in refwalk

In rcuwalk the dentry is validated before it is accepted. step_into() step_into() rechecks d_seq and __follow_mount_rcu() rechecks mount_lock. An entry that gets unlinked in between causes the lookup to retry and miss.

A refwalk doesn't do this. lookup_fast() takes a reference on the hashed dentry and simply accepts it. So an unlink that happens after the reference was taken isn't seen by refwalk. That's fine for a simple file. We just happened to open it before it was unlinked, no problem.

For a mountpoint and specifically a locked mountpoint it very much isn't. The unlink detaches all mounts and then removes the name. Any refwalk that hasn't traversed the mounts yet simply reveals the underlying entry. It's a very narrow window but it can be hit:

reads of a covered file in 60 s, 3 walkers, ~15000 unlinks no widening 27 that step + 200 us 3741

See the appended patch for a more reliable reproducer.

So check the entry after step_into(). unlink(), rmdir() and rename() mark the dentry with dont_mount() before they detach the mounts and remove the dentry.

So a dentry that is marked with DCACHE_CANT_MOUNT and is unhashed by the time its mounts were looked at is a name that was unlinked under the refwalk. DCACHE_CANT_MOUNT is read after the mounts were looked up and it is set before they are detached by detach_mounts(). A refwalk tha…

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CVE-2026-98980 — namei: don't reveal overmounted entries in refwalk