ovl: always encode the origin fh when index is enabled

On an overlay with index=on,nfs_export=on, copy up of a directory
crashes the kernel once an LSM has started to deny CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH
to the mounter, the task that mounted the overlay. The mount and the LSM
policy change require root. After that, any user who can write to a
directory that exists only in a lower layer triggers the oops by doing
so.

Before a file or directory that exists only in a lower layer is changed
for the first time, overlayfs copies it to the writable upper layer.
This is called copy up.

On copy up, ovl_get_origin_fh() encodes the file handle of the lower
inode, called the origin. It returns NULL if ovl_can_decode_fh() says
that the lower filesystem cannot decode handles. Whether the callers can
handle NULL depends on the index option:

- Without an index, NULL is fine: the callers store an empty origin
  xattr.
- With index enabled, overlayfs keeps entries for copied up inodes in an
  internal index directory. The name of an index entry is derived from
  the handle, so ovl_get_origin_fh() must return a handle or an error.

The mount only enables the index if ovl_can_decode_fh() succeeds for all
layers, but the result can change later. The function checks the export
operations of the filesystem and capable(CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH). Copy up
runs with the mounter's credentials, and an LSM can start to deny the
capability to those credentials after the mount. ovl_get_origin_fh()
then returns NULL with index enabled.

This goes wrong in two callers:

- With nfs_export=on, copy up of a directory creates an index entry for
  the directory. ovl_create_index() passes the NULL handle to
  ovl_get_index_name_fh(), which dereferences it.
- If the result changes while mount(2) is still running,
  ovl_get_indexdir() passes a NULL from ovl_get_origin_fh() to
  ovl_verify_set_fh() in the same way.

Before the commit in the Fixes tag, these two callers encoded the handle
themselves, without consulting ovl_can_decode_fh().

Reproduced with a BPF LSM program that started to deny the capability
after the mount. An unprivileged touch in a directory that had not been
copied up yet oopsed in ovl_get_index_name_fh(). With this patch the
touch succeeds and the directory gets its index entry.

Fix this by calling ovl_can_decode_fh() in ovl_get_origin_fh() only when
index is disabled.

Fixes: 5b02bfc1e7 ("ovl: do not encode lower fh with upper sb_writers held")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Chris Mason <mason@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Amir Goldstein <amir73il@gmail.com>
This commit is contained in:
Chris Mason 2026-10-16 21:17:07 +00:00 committed by Amir Goldstein
parent eb644ed5c6
commit 949f9d8a55

View File

@ -474,8 +474,12 @@ struct ovl_fh *ovl_get_origin_fh(struct ovl_fs *ofs, struct dentry *origin)
* When lower layer doesn't support export operations store a 'null' fh,
* so we can use the overlay.origin xattr to distignuish between a copy
* up and a pure upper inode.
*
* With index enabled, mount already found that all layers can decode
* file handles. Do not ask again, because an LSM may change its answer
* about CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH and index users cannot cope with a 'null' fh.
*/
if (!ovl_can_decode_fh(origin->d_sb))
if (!ofs->config.index && !ovl_can_decode_fh(origin->d_sb))
return NULL;
return ovl_encode_real_fh(ofs, d_inode(origin), false);