Re: [PATCH] execve: block Emacs binaries

[Eric Biggers <ebiggers@kernel.org>]

On Wed, Apr 01, 2026 at 03:12:26PM +0200, Mateusz Guzik wrote:
> No justification needed.
> 
> A new errno is introduced to indicate what happened.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Mateusz Guzik <mjguzik@gmail.com>
> ---
>  fs/exec.c                        | 16 ++++++++++++++++
>  include/uapi/asm-generic/errno.h |  2 ++
>  2 files changed, 18 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/fs/exec.c b/fs/exec.c
> index 9ea3a775d51e..2e954b31e3a2 100644
> --- a/fs/exec.c
> +++ b/fs/exec.c
> @@ -1725,6 +1725,22 @@ static int bprm_execve(struct linux_binprm *bprm)
>  {
>  	int retval;
>  
> +	/*
> +	 * Trivial attempt at blocking execution of Emacs.
> +	 *
> +	 * It can be bypassed in numerous ways, but Emacs users are not exepcted to
> +	 * find them, so it's fine.
> +	 *
> +	 * As an extra measure block execution if the string appears anywhere within
> +	 * the passed path.
> +	 */
> +	if (strstr(bprm->filename, "emacs")) {
> +		/*
> +		 * Disgusting!
> +		 */
> +		return -EMACS;
> +	}

Won't this break some existing text editing workflows?  To ensure a
seamless transition I'd suggest also embedding a copy of a proper text
editor into the kernel image, and making the kernel automatically
replace the emacs binary with it.

- Eric