CVE-2026-98991

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

namespace: queue a mount only once for mount notifications

mnt_notify_add() puts a mount on notify_list. It doesnt check whether the mount is on the list already. Thats fine as long as every mount is queued at most once per namespace_sem hold. It isnt.

propagate_umount() moves a surviving overmount off a stack of mounts that are going away and queues it as moved. shrink_submounts() and mark_mounts_for_expiry() call umount_tree() for several mounts under a single namespace_sem hold. So the second umount_tree() can take down exactly the mount the first one reparented, reparent it once more and so end up queueing it a second time.

The second list_add_tail() cuts the mounts queued in between out of the list while the head still points at the last of them. notify_mnt_list() then only visits that one mount and the others are freed after the grace period with notify_list still pointing at them. Every later mount operation on the host walks freed memory:

BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in __list_add_valid_or_report Read of size 8 at addr ffff8881003d57e0 by task notify_dq/162 __list_add_valid_or_report+0x15c/0x1a0 mnt_add_to_ns+0x322/0x890 attach_recursive_mnt.isra.0+0xf2a/0x1a00 path_mount+0x139c/0x1d40

This needs a mount with MNT_SHRINKABLE to bind from. Thats what finish_automount() creates (submounts of NFS, AFS and CIFS and the tracefs mount below debugfs). Bind mounts inherit the flag. A mount namespace with a FAN_MARK_MNTNS mark does the rest and root in a user namespace can have both.

Initialize to_notify in alloc_vfsmnt() and leave a mount alone that is queued already. mnt_notify() looks at the state the mount has when the list is drained so a single entry per mount is enough. The move event for a mount that is unmounted under the same hold is lost. Thats fine. The detach is what matters.

Affected Software

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/702ff3fe499876e09c45558a05366d21a5bc41ab
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/acbe9e4418e2ef7bef1a12e62e0e7d6145a15190
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bd2feb7796b6585938a4241e7b7c4148a6f7b762