Bug 2481910 (CVE-2026-45924)

Summary: CVE-2026-45924 kernel: ksmbd: call ksmbd_vfs_kern_path_end_removing() on some error paths
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security <prodsec-ir-bot>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: unspecified Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Doc Text:
A flaw was found in ksmbd, a component of the Linux kernel. This vulnerability occurs because `ksmbd_vfs_kern_path_end_removing()` is not called on certain error paths, leading to unbalanced inode locks and references. This can result in potential deadlocks and unbalanced locks, which may cause system instability or a Denial of Service (DoS) condition.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-05-27 15:01:54 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ksmbd: call ksmbd_vfs_kern_path_end_removing() on some error paths

There are two places where ksmbd_vfs_kern_path_end_removing() needs to be
called in order to balance what the corresponding successful call to
ksmbd_vfs_kern_path_start_removing() has done, i.e. drop inode locks and
put the taken references.  Otherwise there might be potential deadlocks
and unbalanced locks which are caught like:

BUG: workqueue leaked lock or atomic: kworker/5:21/0x00000000/7596
     last function: handle_ksmbd_work
2 locks held by kworker/5:21/7596:
 #0: ffff8881051ae448 (sb_writers#3){.+.+}-{0:0}, at: ksmbd_vfs_kern_path_locked+0x142/0x660
 #1: ffff888130e966c0 (&type->i_mutex_dir_key#3/1){+.+.}-{4:4}, at: ksmbd_vfs_kern_path_locked+0x17d/0x660
CPU: 5 PID: 7596 Comm: kworker/5:21 Not tainted 6.1.162-00456-gc29b353f383b #138
Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.17.0-debian-1.17.0-1 04/01/2014
Workqueue: ksmbd-io handle_ksmbd_work
Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 dump_stack_lvl+0x44/0x5b
 process_one_work.cold+0x57/0x5c
 worker_thread+0x82/0x600
 kthread+0x153/0x190
 ret_from_fork+0x22/0x30
 </TASK>

Found by Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org).