published August 15, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
afs: Remove setting of AS_RELEASE_ALWAYS for symlinks and mountpoints
Regular AFS files correctly use afs_file_aops which have release_folio
set as netfs_release_folio, so AS_RELEASE_ALWAYS is valid for them
when fscache is enabled (set via afs_vnode_set_cache()).
Symlinks and mountpoints in AFS use afs_dir_aops, which does not provide
a release_folio callback. However, afs_apply_status() unconditionally
calls mapping_set_release_always() for these.
In such case when memory management code attempts to release folios,
filemap_release_folio() checks folio_needs_release() which
returns true due to AS_RELEASE_ALWAYS being set. Since there is no
release_folio callback, it falls through to try_to_free_buffers(),
which at present expects buffer_heads to be not null. For symlinks
and mountpoints without buffer_heads, this causes pointer dereference.
[dh: Added more bits that were missed]