Bug 2517022 (CVE-2026-74483)

Summary: CVE-2026-74483 kernel: binfmt_misc: don't leak the user namespace when the mount fails
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
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Priority: low    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the `binfmt_misc` component of the Linux kernel. An unprivileged local attacker, operating under specific memory constraints (a tight memory cgroup), could repeatedly trigger a failure in the `bm_fill_super()` function during a mount operation. This failure prevents the proper release of a user namespace reference, leading to a leak of one user namespace per attempt. This resource exhaustion can result in a denial of service (DoS) for the system.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-15 12:45:06 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

binfmt_misc: don't leak the user namespace when the mount fails

bm_get_tree() takes a reference to the user namespace and hands it to
get_tree_keyed() as the sget key. sget_fc() moves that reference into
sb->s_fs_info and clears fc->s_fs_info, so from that point on the
superblock owns it and bm_free() doesn't see it anymore.

The superblock drops it in ->put_super(). But generic_shutdown_super()
only calls ->put_super() from inside the if (sb->s_root) branch, so
nothing releases it when bm_fill_super() fails:

- The kzalloc_obj() failure leaves s_root NULL and the whole branch is
  skipped.

- A simple_fill_super() failure in the file loop leaves s_root set, but
  s_op still points at simple_super_operations, which has no
  ->put_super(). bm_fill_super() installs s_ops only once
  simple_fill_super() returned success, and installing it earlier
  wouldn't help either because simple_fill_super() overwrites s_op.

Either way vfs_get_super() calls deactivate_locked_super() and the
reference is gone for good. binfmt_misc mounts are available in a user
namespace and both the inode and the dentry cache are SLAB_ACCOUNT, so
an unprivileged caller under a tight memory cgroup can fail
simple_fill_super() on demand and leak one user namespace per attempt.

Drop the reference in ->kill_sb() instead, which runs unconditionally,
the same way nfsd and rpc_pipefs release their keyed s_fs_info.

That also stops ->put_super() from clearing s_fs_info while the
superblock is still on @fs_supers. generic_shutdown_super() leaves it
there on purpose so that sget_fc() keeps finding it until kill_sb() has
run, but a NULL s_fs_info makes test_keyed_super() miss it, so a
concurrent mount for the same user namespace skips the grab_super()
wait and creates a second superblock for a namespace that is still
being torn down.

Comment 1 Mauro Matteo Cascella 2026-08-21 07:49:30 UTC
Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2026081537-CVE-2026-74483-9915@gregkh/T