linux/fs/ext2
Vasiliy Kovalev 9e2d67fb2b ext2: reject inodes with zero i_nlink and valid mode in ext2_iget()
commit 25947cc5b2 upstream.

ext2_iget() already rejects inodes with i_nlink == 0 when i_mode is
zero or i_dtime is set, treating them as deleted. However, the case of
i_nlink == 0 with a non-zero mode and zero dtime slips through. Since
ext2 has no orphan list, such a combination can only result from
filesystem corruption - a legitimate inode deletion always sets either
i_dtime or clears i_mode before freeing the inode.

A crafted image can exploit this gap to present such an inode to the
VFS, which then triggers WARN_ON inside drop_nlink() (fs/inode.c) via
ext2_unlink(), ext2_rename() and ext2_rmdir():

WARNING: CPU: 3 PID: 609 at fs/inode.c:336 drop_nlink+0xad/0xd0 fs/inode.c:336
CPU: 3 UID: 0 PID: 609 Comm: syz-executor Not tainted 6.12.77+ #1
Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 inode_dec_link_count include/linux/fs.h:2518 [inline]
 ext2_unlink+0x26c/0x300 fs/ext2/namei.c:295
 vfs_unlink+0x2fc/0x9b0 fs/namei.c:4477
 do_unlinkat+0x53e/0x730 fs/namei.c:4541
 __x64_sys_unlink+0xc6/0x110 fs/namei.c:4587
 do_syscall_64+0xf5/0x220 arch/x86/entry/common.c:78
 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f
 </TASK>

WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 646 at fs/inode.c:336 drop_nlink+0xad/0xd0 fs/inode.c:336
CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 646 Comm: syz.0.17 Not tainted 6.12.77+ #1
Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 inode_dec_link_count include/linux/fs.h:2518 [inline]
 ext2_rename+0x35e/0x850 fs/ext2/namei.c:374
 vfs_rename+0xf2f/0x2060 fs/namei.c:5021
 do_renameat2+0xbe2/0xd50 fs/namei.c:5178
 __x64_sys_rename+0x7e/0xa0 fs/namei.c:5223
 do_syscall_64+0xf5/0x220 arch/x86/entry/common.c:78
 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f
 </TASK>

WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 634 at fs/inode.c:336 drop_nlink+0xad/0xd0 fs/inode.c:336
CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 634 Comm: syz-executor Not tainted 6.12.77+ #1
Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 inode_dec_link_count include/linux/fs.h:2518 [inline]
 ext2_rmdir+0xca/0x110 fs/ext2/namei.c:311
 vfs_rmdir+0x204/0x690 fs/namei.c:4348
 do_rmdir+0x372/0x3e0 fs/namei.c:4407
 __x64_sys_unlinkat+0xf0/0x130 fs/namei.c:4577
 do_syscall_64+0xf5/0x220 arch/x86/entry/common.c:78
 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f
 </TASK>

Extend the existing i_nlink == 0 check to also catch this case,
reporting the corruption via ext2_error() and returning -EFSCORRUPTED.
This rejects the inode at load time and prevents it from reaching any
of the namei.c paths.

Found by Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org) with Syzkaller.

Fixes: 1da177e4c3 ("Linux-2.6.12-rc2")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Vasiliy Kovalev <kovalev@altlinux.org>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260404152011.2590197-1-kovalev@altlinux.org
Signed-off-by: Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
History 2026-06-01 17:35:15 +02:00
..
acl.c vfs: add rcu argument to ->get_acl() callback 2021-08-18 22:08:24 +02:00
acl.h vfs: add rcu argument to ->get_acl() callback 2021-08-18 22:08:24 +02:00
balloc.c minmax: add in_range() macro 2025-10-19 16:21:28 +02:00
dir.c fs/ext2: Avoid page_address on pages returned by ext2_get_page 2021-07-16 12:36:51 +02:00
ext2.h ext2: Drop fragment support 2023-08-11 15:13:58 +02:00
file.c ext2: Convert to using invalidate_lock 2021-07-13 14:29:00 +02:00
ialloc.c inode: make init and permission helpers idmapped mount aware 2021-01-24 14:27:16 +01:00
inode.c ext2: reject inodes with zero i_nlink and valid mode in ext2_iget() 2026-06-01 17:35:15 +02:00
ioctl.c ext2: convert to fileattr 2021-04-12 15:04:29 +02:00
Kconfig ext2: use iomap_fiemap to implement ->fiemap 2021-07-27 11:00:32 +02:00
Makefile License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license 2017-11-02 11:10:55 +01:00
namei.c fs/ext2: Avoid page_address on pages returned by ext2_get_page 2021-07-16 12:36:51 +02:00
super.c ext2: Drop fragment support 2023-08-11 15:13:58 +02:00
symlink.c ext2: code cleanup by removing ifdef macro surrounding 2020-05-22 15:11:00 +02:00
xattr.c ext2: fix datatype of block number in ext2_xattr_set2() 2023-09-23 11:09:57 +02:00
xattr.h ext2: code cleanup by removing ifdef macro surrounding 2020-05-22 15:11:00 +02:00
xattr_security.c acl: handle idmapped mounts 2021-01-24 14:27:17 +01:00
xattr_trusted.c acl: handle idmapped mounts 2021-01-24 14:27:17 +01:00
xattr_user.c acl: handle idmapped mounts 2021-01-24 14:27:17 +01:00