[PATCH 6.18 002/212] NFSD: Hold net reference for the lifetime of /proc/fs/nfs/exports fd

Greg Kroah-Hartman
2026-03-23T14:01:47Z

From: Chuck Lever <chuck.lever@oracle.com>

commit e7fcf179b82d3a3730fd8615da01b087cc654d0b upstream.

The /proc/fs/nfs/exports proc entry is created at module init
and persists for the module's lifetime. exports_proc_open()
captures the caller's current network namespace and stores
its svc_export_cache in seq->private, but takes no reference
on the namespace. If the namespace is subsequently torn down
(e.g. container destruction after the opener does setns() to a
different namespace), nfsd_net_exit() calls nfsd_export_shutdown()
which frees the cache. Subsequent reads on the still-open fd
dereference the freed cache_detail, walking a freed hash table.

Hold a reference on the struct net for the lifetime of the open
file descriptor. This prevents nfsd_net_exit() from running --
and thus prevents nfsd_export_shutdown() from freeing the cache
-- while any exports fd is open. cache_detail already stores
its net pointer (cd->net, set by cache_create_net()), so
exports_release() can retrieve it without additional per-file
storage.

Reported-by: Misbah Anjum N <misanjum@linux.ibm.com>
Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-nfs/dcd371d3a95815a84ba7de52cef447b8@linux.ibm.com/
Fixes: 96d851c4d28d ("nfsd: use proper net while reading "exports" file")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Reviewed-by: Jeff Layton <jlayton@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: NeilBrown <neil@brown.name>
Tested-by: Olga Kornievskaia <okorniev@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Chuck Lever <chuck.lever@oracle.com>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
---
fs/nfsd/nfsctl.c | 14 ++++++++++++--
1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

--- a/fs/nfsd/nfsctl.c
+++ b/fs/nfsd/nfsctl.c
@@ -149,9 +149,19 @@ static int exports_net_open(struct net *

seq = file->private_data;
seq->private = nn->svc_export_cache;
+ get_net(net);
return 0;
}

+static int exports_release(struct inode *inode, struct file *file)
+{
+ struct seq_file *seq = file->private_data;
+ struct cache_detail *cd = seq->private;
+
+ put_net(cd->net);
+ return seq_release(inode, file);
+}
+
static int exports_nfsd_open(struct inode *inode, struct file *file)
{
return exports_net_open(inode->i_sb->s_fs_info, file);
@@ -161,7 +171,7 @@ static const struct file_operations expo
.open = exports_nfsd_open,
.read = seq_read,
.llseek = seq_lseek,
- .release = seq_release,
+ .release = exports_release,
};

static int export_features_show(struct seq_file *m, void *v)
@@ -1375,7 +1385,7 @@ static const struct proc_ops exports_pro
.proc_open = exports_proc_open,
.proc_read = seq_read,
.proc_lseek = seq_lseek,
- .proc_release = seq_release,
+ .proc_release = exports_release,
};

static int create_proc_exports_entry(void)