CVE-2026-74484 — binfmt_misc: don't let an 'F' entry pin its own instance

Affected: Linux

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

binfmt_misc: don't let an 'F' entry pin its own instance

An entry registered with 'F' opens its interpreter at registration time and holds that file until the entry is freed. Any entry nobody removes by hand only gets closed once the binfmt_misc superblock is shut down. If the interpreter lives on a mount that keeps that superblock alive the two pin each other:

binfmt_misc sb -> inode -> entry -> interp_file -> vfsmount -> binfmt_misc sb

TL;DR the file is never closed. Once the mount namespace is gone there is nothing left to unregister through either.

There are two ways to trigger this bug:

- Point the interpreter at the instance itself. Its files are regular files owned by the mounter and both bm_get_inode() and simple_fill_super() leave i_op at empty_iops. So notify_change() falls back to simple_setattr() and chmod +x works. We never set SB_I_NOEXEC and so open_exec() accepts it.

- Use the instance as an overlayfs lower layer. The overlay superblock holds a clone_private_mount() of every layer until it is destroyed and that clone is in no namespace. So umount_tree() never reaches it.

That's a DoS. And it isn't only the superblock that leaks. It pins the user namespace it was mounted in, so every iteration permanently eats one of the caller's user namespace charges.

So let's just do the sane thing. SB_I_NOEXEC makes open_exec() fail on the instance's own files and s_stack_depth mak…

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CVE-2026-74484 — binfmt_misc: don't let an 'F' entry pin its own instance