CVE-2026-98451 PUBLISHED

smb: client: use finish_no_open() for non-regular inodes

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 25.09.2026 Published: 18.10.2026 Updated: 18.10.2026

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

smb: client: use finish_no_open() for non-regular inodes

An O_CREAT open can find an existing symlink or another non-regular inode. cifs_atomic_open() calls finish_open() on it and attaches a cifsFileInfo. Symlink inodes have no CIFS release operation, so the dentry reference held by cifsFileInfo is leaked. FMODE_OPENED also prevents the VFS from following the symlink.

Track whether cifs_do_create() returned an open server handle. For non-regular inodes, close the handle if present, remove the pending open, and call finish_no_open() so the VFS can continue the lookup. Do not set FMODE_CREATED unless a regular file was opened. For O_NOFOLLOW with __O_REGULAR, return -ELOOP before the VFS's -EFTYPE check.

Defer closing a legacy POSIX handle on a non-regular inode until after inode lookup. This avoids closing it again if lookup fails.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from d2c127197dfc0b2bae62a52e1e0d3e3ff493919e to ed03d547598c92a036f20e89156540995cac889a (excl.)
  • affected from d2c127197dfc0b2bae62a52e1e0d3e3ff493919e to 70a7918fda54a06d836acc91eb9a3c7e860fe0a0 (excl.)
  • affected from d2c127197dfc0b2bae62a52e1e0d3e3ff493919e to 3c07deb26273155c180aedfd9041ab58015d2521 (excl.)
  • affected from d2c127197dfc0b2bae62a52e1e0d3e3ff493919e to e66cf1625ec4a3fe68346119f371def713fd0a4d (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 3.6 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 3.6 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.12.113 to 6.12.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.56 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2.9 to 7.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.3-rc5 to * (incl.)

References