CVE-2026-89767: Software Security Vulnerability Vulnerability

{
  "schema_version" : "1.4.0",
  "id" : "GHSA-mvh9-78p9-62x7",
  "modified" : "2026-09-13T09:32:30Z",
  "published" : "2026-09-11T21:31:39Z",
  "aliases" : [ "CVE-2026-89767" ],
  "details" : "In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\novl: fix double end_creating() on the casefold-mismatch path\n\novl_create_real() releases the new dentry twice when the casefold\nconsistency check fails.  The S_IFDIR branch calls end_creating() and\nsets err, then falls through to the common out: label which calls\nend_creating() on the same dentry again:\n\n\tcase S_IFDIR:\n\t\tnewdentry = ovl_do_mkdir(ofs, dir, newdentry, attr->mode);\n\t\terr = PTR_ERR_OR_ZERO(newdentry);\n\t\tif (!err && ofs->casefold != ovl_dentry_casefolded(newdentry)) {\n\t\t\tpr_warn_ratelimited(...);\n\t\t\tend_creating(newdentry);\t/* first */\n\t\t\terr = -EINVAL;\n\t\t}\n\t\tbreak;\n\t...\n\tif (err)\n\t\tgoto out;\n\t...\n out:\n\tif (err) {\n\t\tend_creating(newdentry);\t/* second, same dentry */\n\t\treturn ERR_PTR(err);\n\t}\n\nend_creating() is end_dirop(), which does inode_unlock() on the parent\nand dput() on the dentry, so the parent directory's i_rwsem is unlocked\ntwice and the dentry is put twice.  The second unlock releases a lock\nthat is not held, which is what wedges every later creation under that\nparent, and the second dput() drops a reference that was never taken.\n\nThe branch was added by commit dfc7da402ccc (\"ovl: Check for casefold\nconsistency when creating new dentries\") as a bare dput(), which already\nreleased the reference twice; commit fe497f0759e0 (\"VFS: change\nvfs_mkdir() to unlock on failure.\") converted both sites to\nend_creating(), adding the double unlock.\n\nThis is reachable by an unprivileged user.  The casefold consistency of\nthe layers is validated at mount time in ovl_parse_layer(), and again on\nevery lookup in ovl_lookup_single(), but ofs->workdir is the internal\n\"work\" subdirectory created inside the user-supplied workdir, and that\nsubdirectory is not re-checked.  Marking it casefolded after the mount\ntherefore makes every ovl_create_temp() inherit the wrong state - and\nthat path reaches ovl_create_real() through ovl_start_creating_temp(),\nwhich uses start_creating() with a generated name and so never runs the\nlookup-time check.\n\n  unshare -Urm\n  mount -t tmpfs -o casefold=utf8-12.1.0 tmpfs mnt\n  mkdir -p mnt/lower/d mnt/upper mnt/work mnt/merged\n  mount -t overlay ovl -o lowerdir=mnt/lower,\\\n        upperdir=mnt/upper,workdir=mnt/work mnt/merged\n  chattr +F mnt/work/work\n  mkdir mnt/merged/d/sub\t\t# directory copy-up\n\n  overlayfs: wrong inherited casefold (work/#5)\n\nand the next copy-up blocks forever on the parent's i_rwsem:\n\n  mkdir           D  start_creating+0x65/0xb0\n                     ovl_start_creating_temp+0xb0/0xe0 [overlay]\n                     ovl_create_temp+0xa3/0x1d0 [overlay]\n                     ovl_copy_up_one+0x1f1c/0x21c0 [overlay]\n                     ovl_copy_up_flags+0xf5/0x140 [overlay]\n                     ovl_create_object+0xb7/0x220 [overlay]\n                     ovl_mkdir+0x23/0x40 [overlay]\n\nDrop the end_creating() from the branch and let out: own the cleanup,\nwhich is what every other error path in this function already does.",
  "severity" : [ {
    "type" : "CVSS_V3",
    "score" : "CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H"
  } ],
  "affected" : [ ],
  "references" : [ {
    "type" : "ADVISORY",
    "url" : "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-89767"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/077ab8985ee278c3d8618182d335b0f0cd919e16"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2fa220bc0f84597cb6de665e5b5021c5901ddf00"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b1aa8ab78a8e87aee9e306971465408e059f839a"
  } ],
  "database_specific" : {
    "cwe_ids" : [ ],
    "severity" : "HIGH",
    "github_reviewed" : false,
    "github_reviewed_at" : null,
    "nvd_published_at" : "2026-09-11T20:20:07Z"
  }
}