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Subject: [PATCH] romfs: reject directory entry chains that do not move forward
Author: raghunathpalla.0209@gmail.com

romfs_lookup() and romfs_readdir() walk a directory's entry chain by
following ri.next, and stop only once the offset is zero or past the end
of the image. Nothing stops an entry from pointing at itself, so on a
crafted image a lookup of a name that is not present spins forever.

That loop has no cond_resched() and no signal check, so the task cannot
be killed, and it spins with i_rwsem held and the dentry left in the
in-lookup state. A second lookup of the same name then waits forever in
d_alloc_parallel(), and it is that waiter the hung task watchdog
reports, which makes this look like a dcache problem:

  INFO: task syz-executor239:5636 blocked for more than 143 seconds.
   d_alloc_parallel+0xd13/0x16c0 fs/dcache.c:2839
   __lookup_slow+0x82/0x2f0 fs/namei.c:1904

Require the chain to move forward and return -EIO if it does not. File
headers are laid out in increasing order and both loops already treat
the chain as a bounded forward-only walk, so this only enforces what
they assume. In romfs_readdir() a cycle never advances ctx->pos and has
getdents() repeat entries forever, so check there too.

The hard link chain bounded by commit d30b5a954e0a ("romfs: detect hard
link cycles") is a separate one. Sangho Lee posted a fix for this chain
in July 2026 that validates it at inode instantiation; it has had no
replies.

Reported-by: syzbot+e8ebfecec06a009dd2d3@syzkaller.appspotmail.com
Closes: https://syzkaller.appspot.com/bug?extid=e8ebfecec06a009dd2d3
Fixes: 1da177e4c3f4 ("Linux-2.6.12-rc2")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Palla Raghunath <raghunathpalla.0209@gmail.com>
---

#syz test: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git 704340f1cd0dcef829eb62f5b48ae95a2ce17bdf

 fs/romfs/super.c | 26 +++++++++++++++++++++-----
 1 file changed, 21 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/fs/romfs/super.c b/fs/romfs/super.c
index 7f783d6173e8..846b57f265ef 100644
--- a/fs/romfs/super.c
+++ b/fs/romfs/super.c
@@ -143,7 +143,7 @@ static int romfs_readdir(struct file *file, struct dir_context *ctx)
 {
 	struct inode *i = file_inode(file);
 	struct romfs_inode ri;
-	unsigned long offset, maxoff;
+	unsigned long offset, maxoff, next;
 	int j, ino, nextfh;
 	char fsname[ROMFS_MAXFN];	/* XXX dynamic? */
 	int ret;
@@ -191,7 +191,16 @@ static int romfs_readdir(struct file *file, struct dir_context *ctx)
 			    romfs_dtype_table[nextfh & ROMFH_TYPE]))
 			goto out;
 
-		offset = nextfh & ROMFH_MASK;
+		/* likewise, a chain that does not move forward would have
+		 * getdents() repeat entries forever
+		 */
+		next = nextfh & ROMFH_MASK;
+		if (next && next <= offset) {
+			offset = maxoff;
+			ctx->pos = offset;
+			goto out;
+		}
+		offset = next;
 	}
 out:
 	return 0;
@@ -203,7 +212,7 @@ static int romfs_readdir(struct file *file, struct dir_context *ctx)
 static struct dentry *romfs_lookup(struct inode *dir, struct dentry *dentry,
 				   unsigned int flags)
 {
-	unsigned long offset, maxoff;
+	unsigned long offset, maxoff, next;
 	struct inode *inode = NULL;
 	struct romfs_inode ri;
 	const char *name;		/* got from dentry */
@@ -245,8 +254,15 @@ static struct dentry *romfs_lookup(struct inode *dir, struct dentry *dentry,
 			break;
 		}
 
-		/* next entry */
-		offset = be32_to_cpu(ri.next) & ROMFH_MASK;
+		/* next entry; the chain must move forward, or a corrupt image
+		 * will keep us here forever
+		 */
+		next = be32_to_cpu(ri.next) & ROMFH_MASK;
+		if (next && next <= offset) {
+			ret = -EIO;
+			goto error;
+		}
+		offset = next;
 	}
 
 	return d_splice_alias(inode, dentry);
-- 
2.34.1