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* [PATCH] exec: fix off-by-one in binfmt max rewrite depth comment
@ 2026-06-23  5:23 Alan Urmancheev
  0 siblings, 0 replies; only message in thread
From: Alan Urmancheev @ 2026-06-23  5:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Kees Cook; +Cc: linux-mm, linux-fsdevel, linux-kernel, trivial, Alan Urmancheev

The loop in exec_binprm() permits depth values 0 through 5, up to 5
successive binfmt rewrites (setting bprm->interpreter) until the 6th
one would fail on depth > 5 and return -ELOOP. The comment claimed 4
levels, which was wrong. Adjusting the code to allow only 4 rewrites
would be breaking userland, so fix the comment and not the code.

Reproducer (a chain of shebanged scripts followed by an ELF binary):

    #!/bin/sh

    tmp=$(mktemp -d)
    echo $tmp
    cd $tmp

    mk () { echo $2 > $1; chmod +x $1; }

    for i in $(seq 4); do
    	mk $i "#!$((i + 1))"
    done

    mk 5 '#!/bin/true'
    ./1 &&
    echo '5 binfmt rewrites OK (1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4 -> 5 -> /bin/true)'

    mk 5 '#!6'
    mk 6 '#!/bin/true'
    ./1 ||
    echo '6 binfmt rewrites KO (1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4 -> 5 -> 6 -> /bin/true)'

Signed-off-by: Alan Urmancheev <alan.urman@gmail.com>
---
 fs/exec.c | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/fs/exec.c b/fs/exec.c
index b92fe7db1..d5993cedc 100644
--- a/fs/exec.c
+++ b/fs/exec.c
@@ -1717,7 +1717,7 @@ static int exec_binprm(struct linux_binprm *bprm)
 	old_vpid = task_pid_nr_ns(current, task_active_pid_ns(current->parent));
 	rcu_read_unlock();
 
-	/* This allows 4 levels of binfmt rewrites before failing hard. */
+	/* This allows 5 levels of binfmt rewrites before failing hard. */
 	for (depth = 0;; depth++) {
 		struct file *exec;
 		if (depth > 5)
-- 
2.53.0



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2026-06-23  5:23 [PATCH] exec: fix off-by-one in binfmt max rewrite depth comment Alan Urmancheev

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