From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from smtp.kernel.org (aws-us-west-2-korg-mail-1.web.codeaurora.org [10.30.226.201]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 58AE23BFE4B; Thu, 15 Jan 2026 17:28:44 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1768498124; cv=none; b=BB+z3QyTl8maHJStO6aiiUohfKQmqqauqzC9LZDJri1d5K7hrXm10SqRzXI2M9l35v1lwyFvn3+YXX+2cfdXaOEFaTkOxUCjxGiO45OcTdlmrodWbbHg06Y0X1N2RzPaapUjvPXIq5AC9eKhlM7CuyLSdf2uZ06Wkzdei6TzSOc= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1768498124; c=relaxed/simple; bh=SMqWPfR9OnaUm38rFMTbtwvmFchxbJSW/3D1HWzpXI4=; h=From:To:Cc:Subject:Date:Message-ID:In-Reply-To:References: MIME-Version; b=EaqUO6+XLdIsOkqHXP1iKnAwzEWjjwEX3zHTIbwqtZrhQypS/z9Lojsyy+qwOStxXtCMauDXrk8QnI9PQXTyeqAA4KsmuPktn2vRvdOVTXP+V58xyQg/xV+pBTXn1052cxvFZXW7d1oC61hJEnNsYzufIsIQctbSIESTmMBa+R0= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (1024-bit key) header.d=linuxfoundation.org header.i=@linuxfoundation.org header.b=iSu8+Xl6; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (1024-bit key) header.d=linuxfoundation.org header.i=@linuxfoundation.org header.b="iSu8+Xl6" Received: by smtp.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id CA4BEC116D0; Thu, 15 Jan 2026 17:28:43 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=linuxfoundation.org; s=korg; t=1768498124; bh=SMqWPfR9OnaUm38rFMTbtwvmFchxbJSW/3D1HWzpXI4=; h=From:To:Cc:Subject:Date:In-Reply-To:References:From; b=iSu8+Xl6V7ZQZiBXP3w9jP15xKRyXza16n5sm1XkICpiPueXv+4wuxcHMpLdY4oAF JltOe5u/YQnnUOIV5EeX0RZOS0cg+dbw57hY981dund4EvV61fO7zRTiopzjGt0/dA ZR7YLFiErIcwVC1Qrqh9K82SYaRWo5Rgso1Sd+VE= From: Greg Kroah-Hartman To: stable@vger.kernel.org Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman , patches@lists.linux.dev, Sudheendra Raghav Neela , Amir Goldstein , Jan Kara Subject: [PATCH 5.15 322/554] fsnotify: do not generate ACCESS/MODIFY events on child for special files Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2026 17:46:28 +0100 Message-ID: <20260115164257.884351253@linuxfoundation.org> X-Mailer: git-send-email 2.52.0 In-Reply-To: <20260115164246.225995385@linuxfoundation.org> References: <20260115164246.225995385@linuxfoundation.org> User-Agent: quilt/0.69 X-stable: review X-Patchwork-Hint: ignore Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: stable@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit 5.15-stable review patch. If anyone has any objections, please let me know. ------------------ From: Amir Goldstein commit 635bc4def026a24e071436f4f356ea08c0eed6ff upstream. inotify/fanotify do not allow users with no read access to a file to subscribe to events (e.g. IN_ACCESS/IN_MODIFY), but they do allow the same user to subscribe for watching events on children when the user has access to the parent directory (e.g. /dev). Users with no read access to a file but with read access to its parent directory can still stat the file and see if it was accessed/modified via atime/mtime change. The same is not true for special files (e.g. /dev/null). Users will not generally observe atime/mtime changes when other users read/write to special files, only when someone sets atime/mtime via utimensat(). Align fsnotify events with this stat behavior and do not generate ACCESS/MODIFY events to parent watchers on read/write of special files. The events are still generated to parent watchers on utimensat(). This closes some side-channels that could be possibly used for information exfiltration [1]. [1] https://snee.la/pdf/pubs/file-notification-attacks.pdf Reported-by: Sudheendra Raghav Neela CC: stable@vger.kernel.org Signed-off-by: Amir Goldstein Signed-off-by: Jan Kara Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman --- fs/notify/fsnotify.c | 9 ++++++++- 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) --- a/fs/notify/fsnotify.c +++ b/fs/notify/fsnotify.c @@ -224,8 +224,15 @@ int __fsnotify_parent(struct dentry *den /* * Include parent/name in notification either if some notification * groups require parent info or the parent is interested in this event. + * The parent interest in ACCESS/MODIFY events does not apply to special + * files, where read/write are not on the filesystem of the parent and + * events can provide an undesirable side-channel for information + * exfiltration. */ - parent_interested = mask & p_mask & ALL_FSNOTIFY_EVENTS; + parent_interested = mask & p_mask & ALL_FSNOTIFY_EVENTS && + !(data_type == FSNOTIFY_EVENT_PATH && + d_is_special(dentry) && + (mask & (FS_ACCESS | FS_MODIFY))); if (parent_needed || parent_interested) { /* When notifying parent, child should be passed as data */ WARN_ON_ONCE(inode != fsnotify_data_inode(data, data_type));