CVE-2026-53244 is a vulnerability in Linux Kernel
Published on June 25, 2026
VFS: fix possible failure to unlock in nfsd4_create_file()
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
VFS: fix possible failure to unlock in nfsd4_create_file()
atomic_create() in fs/namei.c drops the reference to the dentry
when it returns an error.
This behaviour was imported into dentry_create() so that it
will drop the reference if an error is returned from atomic_create(),
though not if vfs_create() returns an error (in the case where
->atomic_create is not supported).
The caller - nfsd4_create_file() - is made aware of this by checking
path->dentry, which will either be a counted reference to a dentry, or
an error pointer.
However the change to use start_creating()/end_creating() (which landed
shortly before the dentry_create() change landed, though was likely
developed around the same time) means that nfsd4_create_file() *needs* a
valid dentry so that it can unlock the parent.
The net result is that if NFSD exports a filesystem which uses
->atomic_create, and if a call to ->atomic_create returns an error, then
nfsd4_create_file() will pass an error pointer to end_creating()
and the parent will not be unlocked.
Fix this by changing dentry_create() to make sure path->dentry is always
a valid dentry, never an error-pointer. The actual error is already
returned a different way.
Note that if ->atomic_create() returns a different dentry (which may not
be possible in practice) we are guaranteed (because it is only ever
provided by d_spliace_alias()) that it will have the same d_parent and
so it will have the same effect when passed to end_creating().
Products Associated with CVE-2026-53244
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Affected Versions
Linux:- Version 64a989dbd144e0622371396461b11335459692d2 and below ee1f40759a50b1800c98c1c369afd5b3e44ad987 is affected.
- Version 64a989dbd144e0622371396461b11335459692d2 and below e824bbd4d224cce4b5fb59cc9dcd3447fe0b7e44 is affected.
- Version 7.0 is affected.
- Before 7.0 is unaffected.
- Version 7.0.13, <= 7.0.* is unaffected.
- Version 7.1, <= * is unaffected.